


Faith

by MoonSilverSprite



Series: Growing Up Sucks [3]
Category: Time Warp Trio (Cartoon)
Genre: 1920s, Ancient Greece, Anglo-Saxon, Choices, Developing Relationship, Friendship, Heist, Magic, Mystery, New Zealand, Time Travel, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-02-07 12:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18620830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonSilverSprite/pseuds/MoonSilverSprite
Summary: Finale of 'Growing Up Sucks'. In 2013, the Trio and the girls learn that there may be a way of finding out who the green-eyed children are. Chasing them through time with clues, the answer is nothing any of them could have imagined. But with Fred's heart set on Faith, the female green-eyed child, he plans to save her from her evil father, an ex-Time Agent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Bookkeeper_96](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Bookkeeper_96/gifts), [cbraxs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cbraxs/gifts), [Turchinorain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turchinorain/gifts).



**1911, Amazon**

_The birds flew from the trees as the sound of horrific screaming echoed through the forest._

_Joe sat on the muddy ground, trying desperately to punch in numbers into the Book, prising off gum from the pages. Sam exited the tribal hut where Vanessa and Jodie were and headed over to his lifelong friend._

_“Joe, can you please hurry up!” Sam grumbled, crossing his arms. “I do not want my firstborn child to be born in the middle of the Amazon!”_

_“I’m doing it!” Joe flapped his left hand around as the right one started punching the last few numbers._

_Sam groaned, just before the mist flew out from the Book. Whoever said that childbirth was a beautiful thing had clearly never been chased by lawmen all the way from Manaus and had to spend a night under a canopy with a tribe who ate spit._

_“Sam!” Vanessa whined from the hut, “Are we going?”_

_“I think so, dear.” Sam called back. As they were hurtled through time, all Sam could hear was Vanessa screaming like a banshee in his ear –_

“Dad! Stop!” Seth turned green and held his stomach.

Sam smiled and closed the notebook. “Well, you said you wanted to convince Mom that you felt sick and I thought ‘what better way to make you sick than by describing your birth’?”

Seth pulled the covers back and murmured, “Maybe I _will_ go to school.”

As his son started to get dressed, Sam folded his arms and smirked. His plan had worked. Seth would go to school and have to face triple math with the Canadian with a lazy eye.

Downstairs, Erik was sitting on the armchair as Joanne fumbled with a deck of cards.

“Is _this_ your card?” she held up the Four of Diamonds.

“No.” Erik responded.

“Well, I –“ she tried pulling the twenty-first random card out and dropped them all over the floor.

Erik sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It was the Seven of Hearts, Joanne.”

“Oh.” Joanne picked up all the cards and stood.

“Joanne?” Vanessa called as she pulled her coat on. “Remember to pick them up today? Fred’s still in Aruba so you need to babysit.”

“OK!” Joanne waved at them, “Will do!”

Later, as she was holding the boys’ hands and walking them to school, Erik asked, “Why did Mom and Dad go to Aruba without me?”

Joanne replied with, “Sometimes parents have to go and talk business deals in other countries. So you had to stay with Uncle Sam.”

“Why couldn’t I stay with you and Joe?” Erik complained.

“Because last time we ended up in the Black Plague,” Joanne reminded him, “and your parents seem to think it’s much safer if you stayed at Uncle Sam’s house.”

“Seth talks in his sleep.” Erik said.

“I do not!” Seth argued.

Joanne sighed. It was yet another argument between the two boys. They seemed to love each other as much as their dads did, but it could grate immensely.

“Yes you do!” Erik answered as they approached the school gates, “He has an imaginary friend and talks to him at the cupboard. He thinks I’m not listening, but I was.”

Seth had started to blush and fiddled with the button on his dungarees. Joanne gave a small laugh. Not a cruel laugh, but more of a sympathetic one.

“Oh, Erik,” she sighed, “some kids do have imaginary friends. It’s just natural. Now, go inside.”

 

When he got home, Erik turned on the webcam and watched as it set up. “Dad?” he asked.

“Oh, hi,” Fred waved from the other side, smiling from his hotel room, “How’s my little pumpkin?”

“I’m OK,” Erik giggled, “You said you’d tell me. You’d tell me about the adventure that changed your life.”

“I did?” Fred blinked, still smiling, not entirely sure why.

“Dad, I’m almost nine,” Erik argued, “You told me that I was old enough.”

Fred sighed, ran a hand through his hair and then pulled his cap out from his bag. He was far too big for it anymore, but it was still a reminder. “Erik, let me tell you how I met your mother.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Time Agency  
January 2013**

Uncle Joe sat down at the kitchen table as he looked over the last place he’d been to.

He’d been to New Zealand, far in the past, when it was uninhabited by humans. As it was a very slim guess to exactly when the Maori first arrived, he’d had to ballpark and chose the year 1300.

To his amazement, he found that the archaeologists had been slightly wrong, as not only had there been a village set up by the coast, but from what he found out, some of the elderly folk had lived here all their life.

But that wasn’t what scared him the most. In the dark night, when he had seen them gathered around the campfire, he had taken a closer look with his pen acting as a binocular. He had seen one of the older girls, possibly of marriageable age, with shining green eyes in the light of the full moon.

He had come back immediately and told Daisy about this, who had written this down in the documents hidden in the lockers. Daisy had been checking the records ever since she had seen the footage from Agent Hailey.

Uncle Joe wasn’t really sure where Agent Hailey was. When she had come back to the Time Agency in 1985, she had flown off to the gold rush of 1849. Uncle Joe was pretty sure that she was retired. Guarding China’s history for two thousand years would take a lot from you, he guessed.

He skimmed through the parchment where Daisy had written down the places she believed that Agent Andrew had sent his children. There had been over a hundred, according to Faith, when she had taken over Mei in Xiangyang.

But what perplexed Uncle Joe the most was that they knew that Faith would end up being Fred’s spouse. They weren’t sure why or how, but they would end up marrying.

Mad Jack presumably knew how Agent Andrew was doing all of this. Uncle Joe knew that his brother had lived and worked with the man. But Mad Jack wouldn’t say anything. In fact, ever since they had dragged him out of Sam’s body six years earlier, he barely said a word. Not even when someone came down to ask him with help on whatsoever they had been dealing with.

Uncle Joe stood up as Daisy walked in, before she shut the door behind her.

“Joseph,” she asked, nervously, “have you managed to work out how old the green-eyed children were in New Zealand?”

Uncle Joe shook his head, groaning. “No. I’m afraid not. Should – should we tell the children yet?”

“They’re hardly children anymore,” Daisy sat down across from him at the table, digging her elbows into the wood as she held her chin in her hands, “Anna’s the youngest and she’s fifteen. Anyway, you said so yourself that the timelines are almost matching up.”

“It’s best that we know where and when they meet, rather than have any nasty surprises,” Uncle Joe murmured as he looked at the end of the list, “Remember what Agent Hailey saw? Their last four missions are in –“

“Valley of the Kings, medieval Iceland, Renaissance Italy and Washington D.C,” Daisy pushed back from the table as she sank further down in her seat, “and we don’t know the dates. They’re – meeting by chance across history.”

“We need to do something,” Uncle Joe grumbled, “Andrew must have told my brother where exactly they were going. For now, just let the kids know the minimum. That they need to say if they’ve seen the green-eyed children anywhere.”

 _Except that Fred might not,_ he reminded himself, sighing.

**Brooklyn  
January 27th 2013**

Fred tossed and turned under his duvet as he had the nightmare again.

The nightmare always came when he’d been thinking about relationships. Whether it was one of the others talking about how they were in love, or if he had another wet dream about Faith, the nightmare always came. Maybe it was Mad Jack’s magic, maybe it was his anxiety.

_They were in Mad Jack’s lair, the one on the island in Scotland. Fred was in the same place as he was every time; tied to Joe’s bedroom chair._

_Mad Jack stood in the doorway, wearing Sam’s form. Smirking nastily at him, those green pinpricks glaring into his soul. He crossed Sam’s arms and made his way forward, snickering._

_“You dare tell anyone that I’m not Sam, then you’ll pay,” he heard Mad Jack laugh._

_Then it happened again. Mad Jack held Sam’s hand forward and pressed the letter-opener through Fred’s hand and the arm of the chair. The lair changed to da Vinci’s fireplace and Mad Jack had pulled the letter-opener out, tossing it in the air and grabbing it again, Sam’s eyes never once leaving Fred._

_“You want Sam, don’t you?” Mad Jack snickered._

_“Stop it!” Fred shouted, struggling against the ropes. But even as he strained, twisted from side to side, he heard Mad Jack mocking him._

Fred woke up on the floor again, his duvet wrapped around him. Flustered, he felt on his bedside table for his lamp and turned it on. As he got his breath back, he drew his legs, still under the duvet, up to his chest and held them close, bowing his head.

Teenage years were hard. Teenage years when you possibly had a crush on your childhood friend were harder. Teenage years where you had nightmares about your unbelievably confused love life with a maniac speaking through your friend was close to unbearable.

Fred tried ignoring his feelings, thinking they’d pass. But it was too much for him.

He’d recorded a video with the Book, after an intense nightmare. Expressed his feelings. He hoped that he’d never have to show anyone.

As he looked up, the phone started ringing. Opening it up, he saw Joe’s number.

“What is it?” he yawned, scratching his head, “It’s late.”

“Uncle Joe said that we need to go to the Time Agency,” Joe replied, “He told us it’s urgent.”

Fred groaned as he put the phone down and his friend appeared in his room in a flurry of green wind.

**Time Agency**

The three boys stood in the tearoom of the Time Agency. The couches were so comfy that Sam was close to falling asleep repeatedly, causing Fred to elbow him.

Like everything else at the Time Agency, the tearoom was slightly out of place. The walls were cream instead of a shade of green, there was a gigantic printer across the room, framed pictures of several different sports on the walls and something that resembled a cross between a foot bath and a fountain sat at the other end of the room, rainbow lights glowing above.

The sports pictures were all taken from different cameras over several years. But instead of anything normal, the sports were all bizarre and presumably painful. Human Jenga was exactly as it sounded, as did human badminton, clay alligator wrestling, leg-wrestling and tug-of-war with eels.

“Eel pulling was a real sport in Holland,” Sam pushed himself upright on the couch, “The Eel Riot of 1886 resulted in twenty-six deaths and several injuries.”

Joe and Fred rolled their eyes. “You never cease to amaze me,” Joe muttered.

Daisy had now entered the room and waved her broom in the air. A rotating three-dimensional globe appeared in front of them. Several dots were scattered across the continents.

“Remember the green-eyed children the Time Agency saw?” she asked.

Joe and Sam nodded. Fred felt his stomach contort in knots.

Daisy went on. “We’ve managed to find where they have gone to, on their numerous trips. They used magic to pinpoint where and when they have been. Perhaps so as to let Agent Andrew know where they went.”

“The ex-Time Agent,” Sam breathed, staring at the globe, “why?”

Daisy shook her head. “We’re not sure.”

The boys gazed in amazement at the globe. Daisy had magnified it so that they could see more clearly, but the location spells were scattered across the globe.

Most of them were focused around the Mediterranean and Europe, although a good number were located in China or the United States. A few were in South America, two in India and a couple more in Southeast Asia. There was a single dot in Japan, another in New Zealand, a third in Madagascar and one out in the Pacific.

“How –“ Sam started to ask, but Daisy already had the answer.

“One hundred. We have tracked places where the location spells were cast.”

“Where are these places?” Fred asked, “What – what happened there?”

“Historical events,” Daisy sat on the floor in front of the rotating globe, “and they’re precise. See this one?” she pointed at a dot not far from west Greece. “This is the earliest, from Atlantis, about 5000 BC. This one here, in Canada, off King William’s Island, is where the wreck of the HMS Erebus can be uncovered.”

Sam looked as if all of his birthdays had happened at once. “How many exactly?” he encircled the rotating globe, rubbing his hands in glee.

“Some you would have heard of. Name a historical mystery and you bet it could be there. There’s lost places, like Atlantis, King Solomon’s Mines and Neapolis. There’s ancient construction, like Stonehenge, the Carnac Stones and the Pyramids of Giza. There’s lost knowledge, like the Greek fire in Constantinople, the Taulas of Menorca and the Parthenon construction. There’s lost artefacts, including King John’s Crown Jewels, the Ark of the Covenant and the Scepter of Dagobert. There’s lost shipwrecks as well; the _Flor de la Mar_ , _HMS Erebus_ , the _Nuestra Senora de Atocha_. There’s lost works from China, the first copies of the Homeric Odyssey and the code of Hammurabi, Beowulf, even the _White Book of Hergest_ , a book which we’re not even able to pinpoint an exact year of disappearance. And there’s famous disappearances – the Roanoke Colony, the Olmecs, the Princes in the Tower –“

She frowned at Joe and Fred again, sending them back to when they had rescued Richard. While it was true that Richard was now very happy as a market peddler in 1918, Daisy still had been furious with the three of them for rescuing him without asking her.

“There’s a lot of modern work as well,” Daisy moved the globe around slightly to show America and western Europe, “Captain Kidd’s treasure is buried in Madagascar. The Oak Island Money Pit possibly holds the French Crown Jewels, from the dates that I gathered. The Irish Crown Jewels, last seen in 1907, are also on this map. The construction of Coral Castle in 1920. And closer to home is a copy of _That Royle Girl_ , a film by D. W. Griffith, right in New York. There’s also the British Museum, the day after the girls helped steal books from there.”

“The girls?” Joe asked, sitting up.

Daisy told them about when the girls had been to 1941 and somehow saved three thousand books from being bombed. Daisy herself went along to the house where the books were hidden in 1991, from what she had been told, suspecting the green-eyed children, but when she tried going close, she felt dizzy. Realising that this was a trap by Agent Andrew, she had left, but had kept an eye on the house.

“What exactly are the location spells?” Joe asked, as Fred had grabbed a blubbering Sam by the shoulders and helped him into a nearby armchair.

“Powerful magic,” Daisy prodded the globe with her broom handle and it zoomed in on Roanoke, “Usually these can be weak, with a bad signal. But these are spot on. They don’t fade over the centuries, or even millennia. For the Roanoke case, the signal was sent on December 1st 1587. I could just about make out the place the signal was sent to. It happens to have been a different destination than the others.”

Then another dot appeared, hovering over the Himalayas. This one was a different colour than the others’ fading in and out.

Daisy pointed with her hand. “This is located just outside the Time Agency, on the earthly plane. Now, back in 1981, we had an encounter with Agent Andrew at this place.”

Daisy explained, pulling Agent Andrew’s file from the nearby desk next to the printer. “Agent Andrew joined the Time Agency in 1928, aged thirty, or thereabouts. He was an orphan, recommended by the then Warp Wizard, Edgar Cayce. He stayed at the Agency headquarters for about twenty years, all without ageing, before he was made librarian.

“In 1973 he had spent nearly thirty years researching Time Magic, the most difficult and dangerous magic of all. To even know some of this magic, one needs to be born outside of time. He left us in 1976 but In 1981, we found him again.”

“Uncle Joe saw the portal,” Joe nodded. Daisy looked a little pale and gripped the broom, as if she were about to tell him something, but then carried on with her story.

“Joseph Arthur did indeed see a portal. But what surprised us the most was that he had three young children with him. From what we know now, we have uncovered their names. Faith, Joshua and Gary. We believe that he is their father.”

“He seems like a pathetic dad,” snorted Fred, thinking of how unhappy Faith seemed.

Daisy nodded at him, a small smile appearing on her face. “There is – one more thing I need to say. Agent Andrew knows about the Book.”

“He does?” all three boys cried in unison, horrified.

“Why?” Joe demanded, frowning. “Why does he know?”

“If he knows,” Sam was twisting his fingers in worry, “will he come after us? Like Mad Jack did?”

Daisy held up her palms to explain, “Everyone in the Agency knows of the Book. It has the time-space continuum inside. But Andrew seems vaguely uninterested in the Book. Since –“

Daisy broke off. “It doesn’t matter. Andrew is the only one we could think of to carry this out. He knows that we could track him through time. Besides, he has been to some of these places. So he sends his children through. They don’t possess bodies, but they manage to take bodies somehow. Always the same age as they would be in their present, it seems.

“It’s entirely possible that their present is about the year 1995, as the children were four years old in 1981 and you say that they are eighteen now. As for ‘where’ their present is, I think it might be in the Bermuda Triangle. Or at least it was when they were thirteen.”

“What do you mean?” Joe asked, sitting down the wooden bench and gripping the underside.

Daisy paused for a moment and fiddled with her bracelet. “Well…Joseph…Joseph Arthur went to take a look. The day after Sam, Samantha and Fred visited da Vinci.”

Fred went very pale, a chill running down to the base of his spine. This only lasted a second, however, as he then scowled, furious, at Daisy.

“He went there and he didn’t help them?” he barked, even more cross than Joe had been once told about Andrew’s awareness of the Book, “Whyever not? Why did – those kids are _suffering_ , from what I found out!”

Joe and Sam stared at their friend, a little surprised at his outburst. Tiny red spots had appeared on Fred’s cheeks as he stepped forward and ranted.

“Sure, they’ve tried to hurt us, but why did Uncle Joe let them stay there?”

“It could have caused a paradox,” Daisy frowned at them, “And you know about paradoxes. Remember your third trip in time?”

The three of them paused. Fred sighed. “I guess you’re right.”

As they left, Joe whispered to Fred, “Whyever?”

Fred shrugged. “When you have six weeks of waiting at the top of Puyupatamarca Mountain, it’s talk to Sam, or to a llama.”

Sam was walking several paces ahead, before he sat on a chair next to the pool.

Then Joe murmured, “Agent Hailey…she…recorded something inside the Book.” He held out his hand to stop Fred and explained.

Fred frowned at him, his fists clenched. “You saw Faith and you didn’t tell me?” he barked, “Why?”

Joe looked taken aback for a few seconds, before he answered, “Daisy advised us…not to.”

“And why?” Fred folded his arms, his eyes narrowing. 

“Fred, do…” Joe paused, then he gave a small chuckle, “like Faith?”

Fred wasn’t really sure. Damn, when Joe sniggered he sounded like Mad Jack. The dream…Then Fred asked, “If I tell you something, something that’s been on my mind, will you tell me why?”

Joe thought for a moment, before he answered, “Okay.”

Fred explained the dream to him. Joe listened in earnest, before he felt disgusted. “And…how often does this dream happen?”

Fred thought. “Whenever my – my feelings get intense. The dream varies. Sometimes it’s easier, sometimes it’s worse. I – don’t know if Mad Jack’s entered my dreams or if it’s just me, but it’s horrid. Faith…I…”

“You fancy Faith.” Joe sighed, looking down at the ground.

“Joe – I –“ Fred began, but Joe held a hand up.

“It’s fine. If I can’t be happy, I’m going to make sure you are.”

Fred gave a small smile, before his friend walked off towards the pool.

Turning around, he saw Daisy come out of the bushes next to him. “I suspected you would develop feelings around now.” She took his hand and walked over to a part of the pool surrounded by different types of seashells built into the steps.

Daisy brushed the tip of her broom against the water. As the ripples faded, Fred could see the video that Hailey recorded in the Book.

Fred looked at the memory from Agent Hailey. Faith seemed so sincere when she said those words. How did Fred know if she really felt that way towards him? He had no idea how to find her.

Except outside of time.

He’d have to ask Sam to research Agent Andrew. Maybe he would find something stored away in the Time Agency.

But all the same, Fred wondered why his friends hadn’t told him five years ago. Maybe they thought that he would go ballistic and try to find her. But he was older now and while not necessarily wiser, he was not driven by his emotions as much.

Love was a difficult topic for him, nevertheless. His familial love was plain awkward. He knew that his parents loved him and always would. And Mike hadn’t been so bad since Fred had managed to get onto the football team in sophomore year. But it was the other types of love that made everything a challenge.

Even six years later, Fred had the nightmares. It wouldn’t have been too terrible if it didn’t involve Mad Jack using Sam’s body. But since it did, Fred had forced all of his suppressed emotions back. It had taken weeks before he was ready to be alone with Sam again.

And this practically broke his heart.

Sam and Joe said that they understood, but they didn’t know what Fred really meant. Fred’s heart was torn even more whenever he tried to think about how he felt towards Sam.

Then when everything came to Freddi, to her future great-grandmother, his insides would feel like a washing machine. Of course, he knew that he would have to love his spouse, but if he would love her more than Sam…Fred didn’t know if he wanted to know.

If it was Faith, then he’d rather have her than anyone else.

Sam had met an assistant librarian three months ago. Vanessa Wormwood, a freshman in college. True, she was a little on the large side and her face had over half a dozen moles (and more under her clothes), but Sam got on with her all the same.

When Fred had told Samantha about this, the girl had sniggered, narrowed her eyes and smiled knowingly. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to.

Fred supposed that Sam’s situation was much better than what Joe was going through; endlessly trapped at home with his mother and sister as his late teens were spent looking after a baby. Fred didn’t recall much about Phoebe, but he supposed that that was a blessing. Soon, Fred told himself, Joanne will be old enough to warp and the three of us can be together again. Although it would be annoying with a child to drag around, true.

The girls’ love life was also unbelievably complicated, though thankfully not as unfortunate as Joe. Jodie had been dating a Goth, who sometimes barely registered that he was in the human world. Freddi had been dating somebody, but they were so misshapen that Fred had trouble trying to work out if it was a man or a woman, causing a very embarrassing situation when he asked Freddi about her sexual preferences. The person had been a man, but the two of them hadn’t been meant for each other and the relationship ended almost as soon as Fred met them. Samantha didn’t want anyone at the moment, male or female. She was content in her job as a chemist. She definitely seemed to have inherited that trait from Sam.

It was a complete dead end asking Anna for relationship advice. She was fifteen, but acted like she was eight years old again. She still slept with her stuffed toys, when Joanne wasn’t chewing on them, anyway. Out of all of them, she used the Book to travel alone more often than not. Joe had told her off and Anna said that she didn’t really travel anywhere. She just popped into the Time Agency or Mabel’s Diner.

But the stress was taking its toll on Joe. He rarely smiled any more and rather ironically, lost track of time. It was a miracle that Joe had completed all of his exams and was going to the same college as his friends in September. Fred still had no idea how they had all completed their exams three months early, at the end of January, but something about the way Uncle Joe had smirked at him seemed to suggest his involvement.

Fred tried to think about how many times he had seen Faith. She had been in a different body every time; a medieval servant, a Chinese potter, a Wild West outlaw. But he had only seen her real body once, and that was many years ago, when she was only a child.

Fred racked his brains to try and work out if he had seen those glowing green eyes in the six years since, but it was hopeless. Faith could any young woman he met.

There had been one time, back in November 2007, when the boys had visited Cyrenaica in the year 300 BC. The ancient Libyan land had been in a bit of a crisis with the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. While Joe and Sam had tried talking to the leaders, basically being messenger pigeons, Fred had gone down to the coast to look out for warships. He honestly didn’t know which job was more tedious.

Then, due to a bizarre stroke of luck, he had seen a girl in the light of the full moon. She had been with two young boys of about thirteen. Fred watched as he hid behind large rocks.

The girl had been carrying a wooden pot, while another boy held a clay pot. The second boy had held a sickle in his hand and was cutting the plants that surrounded the three of them. Then as the two holding pots went down to the coast and to a boat tied up by the shore, the other boy had drawn a circle around him in glowing chalk and began chanting as green light appeared about him.

Fred remembered what Joe had told him had happened in 1216. Staying completely still, Fred watched as the girl and the first boy lifted the pots on board the boat, before the girl started unfurling the sails.

Fred couldn’t help himself. He had run out from his hiding place and shouted, “Faith!”

As soon as he approached, the boy on the boat glared his vibrant green eyes at Fred and leapt at him, tackling him to the ground.

“Go!” he had shouted at the girl, who scrambled for two oars and rowed away. The magician had ceased casting the spell and, to Joe’s surprise, had started floating in mid-air. He glanced down at Fred on the beach for less than a second, before looking away and descending onto the boat, which had disappeared around a cliff.

Then the boy holding Fred down had sneered, running back up the stone steps and running off into the darkness.

Fred had no clue what had happened, but he didn’t tell the others because it sounded so weird. Besides, if this was Faith, the others might stop him from going after her. That girl was so mysterious. Maybe this was what attracted her to Fred.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote some of this a short while ago, which I put up because I needed to get the story going. I'm not entirely sure how everything will look, although I do have the ending in mind.

Fred looked down at the pool as he came back to the present (again, this was a strange thing to say outside of time). Paddling his feet in the water, as if he were a child again, he wondered if people actually swam in this pool instead of meditate, send messages in time or a crude way of time travel.

Daisy was sitting down on the stone bench, gripping her broom tightly in her right hand. Fred walked up to her, wondering why she seemed worried. Then he remembered that Daisy would have remembered Agent Andrew.

According to the information from the files he had asked Sam to look at, with the promise of not laughing at his suit at the prom that spring, Agent Andrew had started at the Time Agency in the 1920s. He spent so much of his life inside the Time Agency and outside of time that he stopped ageing at the normal rate.

Then, in 1976, over fifty years after he had arrived, Agent Andrew had left, angry that the Time Agency wouldn’t let him know all the mysteries of history, despite working his back off inside the library where this information was stored. Apparently, if you searched for something in the library that you didn’t have permission to read, a herring would appear out of the Book, slap you in the face with its flipper and the book would shut before a gold chain wrapped itself around the cover and fly back to the shelf. Sam thought this sounded like a wonderful library. If Fred hadn't been convinced beforehand that Sam was nuts, this cemented his suspicion.

Fred wondered how old Daisy was. She seemed about the same age as Uncle Joe, though maybe living outside of time had also taken an effect on her physically.

Daisy barely seemed to notice that Fred was now sitting by her side. When she did, she simply asked, “Do you have any questions? I know you want to know about the only person here worse than Jack Arthur.”

Before Fred could say anything, she sighed and pulled her messy brown hair behind her ear. “Yes, I knew Agent Andrew, Fred.”

“How old – were you when you came here? When you started being a Time Agent?” Fred cautiously asked.

She smirked a little. “Seven. That was – let me see, back in 1954.” Somehow Fred didn’t question why she still looked to be in her forties.

She carried on. “Most Time Agents started here as children. Mainly orphans, looking for a home. We’re eager to learn. But Andrew, Andrew was already in his mid-twenties when he came here.”

“How did he come here?” Fred wanted to know.

“Let me show you.” Daisy took her bracelet from her pocket and placed the largest charm by Fred’s Third Eye.

Then Fred saw.

_The Time Agency didn’t look too different ninety years ago. True, some of the Agents had on the sort of clothing that Fred saw in old movies, but aside from the fact that the shallower end of the pool hadn’t been built, the place seemed exactly the same._

_A man was meditating inside one of the Chinese pavilions. He also wore old-fashioned clothes, in his case a green pinstripe suit. A young Native American woman in dark green robes stood outside the pavilion with a scruffy-looking young man who appeared as if he had been living on the streets._

_The woman coughed and the man in the pinstripe suit opened his eyes. “Ah, sorry, Agent Evelyn,” he stood up and brushed himself up, “Is this the young man you recommended?”  
Evelyn nodded. “His name is Andrew, Edgar. He came from the railyards in Chicago.”_

_Andrew nodded, then held his head to one side and gave out a short laugh. “I believe I have seen your face before, sir,” he remarked, “You are Edgar Cayce.”_

_Edgar nodded, a small smile appearing on his face. “Indeed I am. Clairvoyant, prophet, whatever you wish to call me. I was just visiting Atlantis.”_

_“You went to Atlantis?” Andrew’s mouth hung agape in amazement._

_Evelyn snickered. “Sometimes I wonder whether he’s telling the truth. But yes, we do go to Atlantis. Or Lemuria or other such places. Not very often, though. No, we stand on ceremony, so to speak, at this place.”_

_Andrew snorted. “Sounds like my school.”_

_Edgar descended the pavilion steps. “Of course, Andrew, if you wish to become a Time Agent, you need to stay here. You can’t look back. Maybe one day, you will be a Time Page. Or even a Time Knight or a Time Squire. Evelyn here is a Time Knight.”_

_Evelyn blushed and fiddled with her plait. Andrew gave a quick look back at Edgar and raised an eyebrow._

_Edgar slapped him on the shoulder and then gripped it firmly. “You’ll understand more once you begin to live here.”_

_Then the vision changed slightly. Fred saw quick snippets of Andrew meditating in the pool, sitting at the dining table and laughing with Evelyn, the ceremony by the willow trees where he was made a Time Page._

_Then everything changed. Inside the Warp Wizard’s bedroom, Edgar sat hunched over a wooden desk. His hair was greyer and he seemed more frail and worn. There was a knock at the door and he looked up. “Come in!” he called._

_Andrew opened the door and entered. He still looked exactly the same. “Ah, Andrew,” Edgar smiled at him, “Is there a problem?”_

_Andrew twisted his fingers nervously as he looked directly at Edgar. “Edgar, I just wondered – you remember when I came, when I wanted to know about Atlantis?”_

_Edgar nodded._

_“Well, I – I wanted to know – you say that the Time Agency knows –“_

_“The secrets of history?” Edgar smiled and his left arm flew from left to right, green dust sparkling in mid-air, before it dispersed and they could see Atlantis, the Trojan horse, the construction of the Pyramids, the Maori landing in New Zealand. Edgar waved his hand again and it vanished._

_Andrew swallowed and nodded like a bobble-head dog. “It’s – I’ve been here twenty years. I left everything behind to know.”_

_Edgar sighed and lay back in his chair. “Take it up with the next Warp Wizard. I’m not long for either world, Andrew. The world knows me as a sixty-seven-year-old clairvoyant. But in reality, I’m almost a hundred and twelve. I’ve read every single one of the volumes in the library –“_

_“And that’s the library I mean!” Andrew had raised his voice in frustration, “You know everything! I – you wouldn’t let me have Evelyn!”_

_The two of them paused, letting this sink in. Edgar raised his right hand._

_“Andrew, I am truly sorry about her –“_

_“We were bored!” Andrew shouted, “You wouldn’t let me read in the library. We went to Madagascar. I wanted to see Captain Kidd bury his treasure. But we landed in the wrong century. Queen – Queen Ranavalona – Evelyn is gone, Edgar. And it’s all because we couldn’t read your books!”_

_“Strictly speaking, they are not my books,” Edgar reminded the younger Time Agent, “They belong to the prior Warp Wizards.”_

_“Yes, yes,” Andrew flapped his hands about, “you hid your visions in books. How many times do you need to tell me?”  
Edgar stood up and then threw some green dust into the air. As a portal slowly appeared, he sighed as his eyes examined Andrew. “It’s your choice, Andrew. You want to make money off of the mysteries of time, then be my guest.”_

When the vision had ended, Fred asked Daisy, “Are the books still in the library?”

Daisy nodded. “I’ve read them. But only when our numbers began falling and there were very few of us left. It’s amazing, believe me, Fred. But Andrew found a secret in the library. How to time travel in a different way from everybody else.”

“Born outside of time…” Fred held a hand on his chin, his eyes widening.

Daisy stood up and walked over to the pool. “Andrew spent nearly thirty years researching inside the library. I have no clue why Hedgewing let him work there. Maybe he felt sorry for him. Maybe he foresaw things to come. Whatever the answer, Andrew devoured information he found inside. He was found undertaking intense rituals. He could be meditating for weeks. And in 1976, he ran away. The next thing we knew, he had sealed himself away in a Vile Vortice and had three children.”

Fred murmured under his breath, “Joshua. Gary. Faith.”

Daisy didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.

**Brooklyn  
2033**

“This is getting boring, Dad,” Erik was fidgeting in his seat, “I don’t mean to upset you, but I’m eight. I have a narrow attention span.”

Fred lowered his head and chuckled, before he said his goodbyes and turned the webcam off.

That night, Seth sat in front of the cupboard as he started mumbling. He was holding his teddy in front of him, the cream one with a red bow. Honestly, Erik wondered as he lay under the duvet, it was as if he were six, not nearly nine.

Erik was tempted to throw his pillow at his friend, but then heard a short laugh. It didn’t come from his friend. But it was a young boy’s laugh.

Erik sat up abruptly, but he couldn’t see anything in the cupboard. Cowering slightly under the blanket, he crawled toward the end. Seth was sniggering and answered, “I think so as well.”

Then Erik squinted. Yes, he could see something. A small, green orb was flying near the bottom of the closet. The faint outline of a boy sat there, one leg outstretched and the other bent. The boy seemed maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. They had messy hair that stuck out at all angles and although the colours weren’t quite visible, he could see that the ghost – since Erik had no word for what he could see in front of him – had a striped shirt on.

Erik then heard the boy’s voice getting louder. Maybe it was because he was concentrating more. Maybe whatever magic the boy was using had started to fall apart, or maybe he wasn’t paying much attention any more.

But Seth stood up and gave a small moan. “I’m sad that we won’t have to talk any more,” he held his teddy close to his chest, “If you say you’ve learnt everything, though, then I guess that’s fine.”

Then he asked, “Why did you want to know about how Uncle Joe lived?”

Erik threw the duvet cover off and grabbed Seth by the shoulders, pulling him back. The taller boy stood in front of his friend, protecting him from whatever horror was glowing inside the cupboard.

The ghostly apparition dispersed in a puff of dark green smoke and then Erik turned the light on and grabbed his friend by the upper arms. “Seth, what was that?” he asked, furious.

Seth scowled at him. “That was my imaginary friend,” he pushed his glasses up, “He comes every night to talk to me.”

“Your imaginary friend appears out of thin air?” Erik’s blood had started to run cold and his eyes widened, “Why?”

Seth shrugged. The door opened and Sam burst in, holding the doorknob.

“Boys, what’s the problem?” he asked.

Seth perked up, smiling sweetly. “Oh, it was my imaginary friend, Dad. It was Mr. Jack.”

Sam and Vanessa were in the study, trying to explain to their son exactly what had happened and why ‘Mr. Jack’ wasn’t to be trusted. Despite the late hour, Joe had come over to try and seal up Sam’s house from any invaders, on this plane or otherwise.

Joanne had checked the Time Agency. According to records they found, this had been when Mad Jack, back in 1983, had tried one of his first attempts to travel without the Book. That was how he knew Joe’s future. Seth had been too innocent to know, but when he had said how old Joanne was and how old Joe and his friends were, it was inevitable that Jack had pieced things together.

Sam was beside himself with fury and misery. He had no idea how this had happened. But despite Joe muttering that some things now made sense, Sam wouldn’t be consoled.

Erik had sat by the side of the couch, munching on a Pop Tart, even though it was three in the morning and his mom would be furious if he knew. His parents were flying back soon anyway.

Erik kicked his legs under the couch as he tried to think. Mr. Jack was the name that his mom and uncles used for Mad Jack, wasn’t it? A long time ago, when they were only a little older than he was now.

Erik curled himself onto a ball on the couch as he heard Sam’s muffled voice coming from upstairs, talking to his son about safety. Pushing the crumbs off onto the floor, Erik wondered when his dad would be back.

**Time Agency  
2013**

Daisy had managed to work out something. She’d had a closer look at the dates and discovered that the age of the spellcaster was given each time. The same person had cast all of them. The age was among a lot of other information and it was almost unnoticeable, but it seemed that some of them could now be done in a separate order; the age the green-eyed children went to on missions.

Placing the Book close to the globe, it had glowed a vivid green when placed over a dot. The Book had been in the same time and generally proximity when each spell was cast. She needed to tell Uncle Joe. Then the others. She had to get this out there. Maybe then they could find Andrew.

**Carnac, Brittany, France  
4495 BC**

“You sure this is the right place?” Sam asked as he slapped the back of his hand against the mud on the bottom of his shoe.

Fred nodded, as Jodie and Freddi peered over his shoulders at the Book in his hands. “Daisy said that one of the location spells was at the Carnac Stones in Brittany. And this is as far back as it went. We just need to find them.”

“How?” Jodie asked, raising an eyebrow and placing her hands on her hips. “This all seems a little like a wild goose chase to me. And it’s also a needle in a haystack. If the moon isn’t showing or full, how do we know if it’s the same children?”

Before any of the others could answer, they saw a thin boy of maybe fifteen standing on the stone steps nearby. He was carrying a bundle of straw in one hand, a sickle in the other. He came closer and asked, “Are you travellers?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam panted, standing up straight, “Is – is this where the stone spheres are made?”

The boy looked a little alarmed, but smiled and nodded. “It is. The summer solstice will be along tonight. Come, join us in our festivities.”

“Summer solstice?” Fred whispered to Sam, tucking the Book under his shirt and securing it with a belt.

“It might be similar to Stonehenge,” Sam muttered, “Archaeologists are still trying to work out why the stone spheres of Carnac were erected.”

“Thank you, Professor.” Fred and Freddi replied in unison. They paused and Freddi giggled.

That night, after a rather loud evening’s drinking from the local shamans and feasting on several huge boars, the girls were asleep in one of the wooden huts. The boys were outside, looking out in the full moon at the sea. The stones were not beside the village, as the group thought they might have been, but a few miles away. At the present, this Palaeolithic village was a simple fishing and farming community.

“Some think the stone spheres were used as calendars,” Sam lay back against the unusually warm rock, “so the farmers would know when to plant and harvest their crops. One of the strangest stories was that the wizard Merlin petrified a Roman army. Considering Joe said Merlin was a Warp Wizard, I’m not sure.”

Fred rolled his eyes, but then the two of them heard a horrible scream coming from nearby.

They looked around and saw the boy from earlier standing on the sand. He had Jodie’s faced pushed into the sand and sounded furious.

“So you decide to come after us?” he snarled, “I can tell you are older, so we have met.”  
“Remind me, since I travel in time a lot –“ Jodie started, but he twisted her arm.

He smirked. “The name was Isaac Hershel, miss.”

Jodie paused. “Isaac? The boy from the British Museum?”

The boy nodded. “The name’s really Gary. I am afraid I am not sure if you told me the truth, Agent Carter, but I am sure that you will not ruin my mission. My brother and sister already have given the archaeology secret to the ages.”

“Archaeological secret?” Jodie squirmed underneath Gary but it was to no avail.

“Indeed, Peggy Carter,” he sneered, using the alias she had given in the Blitz, “but you do not see what is right in front of your eyes. My brother was the apprentice shaman in this mission, my sister the weaver. If you look,” he pulled her chin upwards with the fingers on his other hand, “you can see.”

A small, green light came up from the direction of the stones. It only lasted ten seconds, but vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Gary backed off and smirked at the girl, now sitting upright on the sands, sand in her hair and skirt. Even when the boys scrambled down to her, Gary shrugged.

“You are too late, _mon ami_ ,” he picked up a spear that had been lying on a piece of driftwood, “I will see you in the future. Both futures.”

Then his eyes glowed bright green and he went completely still. The boys helped Jodie up and ran back towards the settlement.

Finding Freddi at the wooden huts, she gabbled that the weaver and apprentice shaman had stolen some things from each hut and headed to the stones. Now the village had been out for murder, since sacred relics had been taken.

Before anyone could do anything, at that moment, the Book glowed and they were sent back to the Time Agency.

**Outside Time  
1995**

Faith brushed her hair for what seemed like the thousandth time as she stared at the pieces of paper in front of her.

The next mission was the Valley of the Kings. They would find the tomb of Tutankhamen’s wife and send a location spell. Normally, Faith would be nervous before a mission. They all had their own ways of calming down. Gary took part in kick-boxing. Joshua made things; candles, soap, knives, jewelry (some of which Faith had worn), bread and cakes, even lace. Faith brushed her long, tangled hair.

But she wasn’t just brushing today because she was nervous.

It was because her and Fred’s timelines would match up again. They would be the exact same age.

Then maybe, just maybe, he could get them out of this prison she had been living for eighteen years.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone has any thoughts on where this will go, or how they're travelling in time and taking over bodies, do not hesitate to leave them below.
> 
> This is where I start to get a little cheerier again, as you can see when the boys start acting like kids again while in Italy.

**Time Agency  
3rd February 2013**

Several days after they had gone to Carnac, Fred and Sam were sitting inside the library at the Time Agency. Fred honestly didn’t want to be surrounded by books that either yelled at you if you mishandled them or slapped you in the face, but Sam didn’t seem to mind.

They’d gone to look for books that had Andrew’s fingerprints inside. Fred had told Daisy that this sounded stupid, but she said something about a magic bookmark and gave a dark green strip of felt to Sam. Now Fred was next to a pile of weird-looking books while Sam kept saying the words ‘wonderful’, ‘fascinating’ and ‘incredible’ so many times that Fred wanted to slam the book in his face.

“So which archaeological finds are the…” Fred searched for the right word to describe Faith that didn’t make him sound like a lovesick fool, “green-eyed children after?”

“I found four separate instances in Egypt,” Sam murmured, looking through a book almost as large as the table, with hieroglyphics scattered throughout, holding the bookmark a couple of inches above the page as it glowed intensely, “The earliest is the Great Pyramid of Giza. I think they might have gone to steal the treasure inside. A little later on – ‘little’ in regards to how long the Dynasties lasted – there’s a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, in around, let me see, 1322 BC. That must be where they were going to after Xiangyang – Fred, why are you screaming into the cushion?”

When his friend’s face slowly looked up and Sam saw that Fred probably wanted to throttle him, Sam took this as a sign to not prattle on.

“Okay,” Sam pushed his glasses further up his nose, “There’s also something called ‘the Lost Labyrinth’ in the fifth century BC. And the final pinpoint in Egypt’s history is the Library of Alexandria during the first century BC, probably before it was burned in 48 BC.”

He closed the book without any issue, which was amazing considering the sheer size, before it floated up to the shelf.

Fred wondered if they could find any of the items that the green-eyed children had hidden.

Before he could say this, however, they noticed that time mist had seeped around them and they started whizzing through time.

**Sicily  
19th October 1969**

To Fred and Sam’s surprise, they found themselves in a cobblestone town square.

According to the fact that there were Beetle cars in the streets, a nearby flowing fountain and cobbled streets, they would have guessed somewhere in southern Europe in the late twentieth century.

Although it was as much of a surprise as suddenly warping to somewhere relatively recent was the fact that Joe had somehow landed in the fountain and was drenched in water spilling out of a marble woman’s breast.

“Help.” Joe muttered weakly, as if he knew exactly what was going on but chose not to try and scream at them now. His friends came up, Fred diving out of the way of a motorcycle rushing past, before he somehow decided to use a table as a hobbyhorse.

 _Showoff,_ Sam snorted, before they grabbed an arm each and pulled Joe out.

“Right,” Joe squeezed the water out of his shirt, “where is this?”

Sam felt under his shirt and found that the Book was there. “It says that we’re in Palermo, in 1969.” He put it away quickly. “We don’t go much later than that.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Joe scowled, shaking his head like a dog and splattering them in cold water, “Anyone guess why I suddenly got dragged from watching an R-rated movie for the first time in a year and into a fountain?”

“Psst!”

A voice came from a few feet away, by some motorcycles chained to railings. A man dressed in a black pinstripe suit stood there. “You kids the time-travellers?”

They stood perfectly still, very nervous. The three of them shared a worried glance, wondering if they should run. The man then sniggered.

“Course you are; I saw you appear out of thin air. Monty says that he wants to speak to the time-travellers. He said that three young people would appear from thin air. I’d recommend that you come this way, kids.”

The way he spoke was slightly smooth, like a businessman or lawyer to a client. Added to where and when they were and Sam went very pale. Grabbing Joe’s wet shirt in his hands, his voice started to squeak for the first time since it broke.

“Joe, I think this guy’s in the mafia!” he hissed.

Joe snorted. “Relax,” he pushed Sam away, going up to the man, addressing him confidently, “Yes, we are the time-travellers. At your service. Shall I show you my card trick?”

Fred slapped a hand to his face in embarrassment. The man looked a little annoyed.

“Boy,” he gritted his teeth, “this way. No time to waste.” He turned on his heels and the three anxiously followed him down to some stone steps of a house nearby, before walking back up the stairs and into the house, saying that ‘Monty wanted to speak to them privately’.

Joe knocked on the door. Sam looked around, nervously. “Dude,” he grabbed at Joe’s shirt, “does the word 'mafia’ mean _anything_ to you? This is a really bad idea.”

“They asked for us,” Joe argued, “They said, ‘us three kids’ and mentioned the Time Agency. And besides, we’ve got the Book.” He patted the Book underneath his shirt.

Sam was about to point out that Joe was still being stupid, but then the door opened. Sam hid behind Fred as another man in a black pinstripe suit came out. He was rather stocky and looked as if he had spent the majority of his life smoking.

“Time Agency?” he asked.

Joe nodded. Sam was so scared that he wondered if perhaps he would have wet himself if he had been a little younger.

The man grunted and gestured for them to come in. The room was barely any bigger than the toilets at school and roughly as hygienic. As soon as the door shut behind them, the man sat down on an armchair with an ashtray next to it on a table.

“You here for the painting?” he asked, “Your contact was very interested in the thing. Where are my manners? I am Monty, children. I thought you were coming a bit later, though.”

Monty sniggered, dropping some ash from his cigarette. “Now, see here, kids,” he leaned forward in his chair, his pug-like face scowling at them, “you may be Time Agents and that means something to me, trust me on that. But I haven’t spent twenty years in the Sicilian Mafia for nothing. I played my part, maybe a little too convincingly. I could drain those little bodies of blood before you can say ‘Jim Thorpe’. So I need payment for the painting. And I need to please my men here. We went to a lot of trouble to get Caravaggio’s _Nativity_. I’d say about forty thousand lira. We aren’t cheap, you know.”

“Cara-huh?” Fred asked.

Sam groaned. “Guys, it’s a famous painting. It was stolen on 18th October 1969 in Palermo, possibly by the mafia. The full name is _Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence_ , although often abbreviated to ‘ _Nativity_ ’. Forty thousand lira is putting it mildly.”

Both Joe and Fred wanted to ask why this man was suddenly going to hand over a painting to the Time Agency, but Monty spoke before they had a chance.

“Quite right, little miss,” he addressed Sam, “and I understand if you weren’t sent with the money. It is quite a lot. Maybe about twenty of your American dollars. But hey, post-war Italy is a nightmare and this business takes what it gets. I’ve been around in other centuries and in my opinion, the Med’s been the abused child of several Empires. So Sicily’s my home just as much as the Time Agency is. I want to see her be content. And forty thousand lira is reasonable, would you say?”

The boys had no idea what to say to him. Why would they be interested in an offer that he suddenly handed out, even if he came from the Time Agency? He was definitely bonkers enough to have come from there.

And why did he think Sam was a girl? It wasn’t as if he was dressed like one, like when they were in Nevada. On two occasions.

But Monty got up from his seat and walked to a drinks cabinet. “I know you’re not old enough to drink, but here in Italy we like to drink when we make a deal.” He turned to Joe. “You go and do whatever it is with your magic stuff and I’d like to speak to your friends in private, if I may.”

Joe was about to interrupt, but Monty fixed him with a fierce look. “If – I – may.”

Joe gulped, looked back at Sam and Fred and then left the room and up the stone stairs.

Monty chuckled as he poured himself a drink. “He gets so full of himself, doesn’t he? Now then, children, sending the painting to the States is going to be tricky. I don’t know how much longer you’re going to be here. I’d recommend we find a solution and find it quickly.”

Fred asked him, “Why did you send him out?”

Monty shrugged, the wine sloshing onto the wooden floor. “He needs to do the location spell, right? He is the magician, right?”

Sam and Fred paused, not entirely sure what the man meant. Then Monty prodded Fred in the chest. “It only fits, really. She’s the historian –“ he gestured to Sam, “and you’re the soldier, because I saw you jump out of the way of that motorbike in the square. I haven’t seen moves like that in a long time. So your friend has to be the magician.”

Sam put up a finger. “Let me just clarify one thing, sir,” he tried not to sound afraid, just he was shaking inside, “I’m a boy.”

Monty only laughed. “That’s what everyone’s supposed to think, I understand. This job’s dangerous and it’s still a prudish world in Europe. A girl travelling with two boys would stand out. It’s obvious you’re the girl; you’re very skinny.”

Outside, Joe ducked down behind the railings as he saw a motorbike approaching. The rider wore a dark blue turtleneck and his passenger had on a yellow mini dress. When Joe saw the rider take off his helmet, Joe noticed that he was only fourteen or fifteen years old. His passenger took off her helmet to reveal long auburn hair.

“How long will we be?” the girl asked as the two of them approached the front door.

“Trust me, Monty’s got it. No need to go in guns blazing. Gary’s gone round the back.”

The girl stopped him by holding a hand out. “Is that really a good idea? Remember Covent Garden, 1810?”

The boy rolled his eyes and pulled her close. “I highly doubt the building will be on fire,” he teased.

Joe instantly knew that staying here was a very bad idea. As he saw them knock on the door, he could have hit himself. They were the ones the mafia had meant to collect! And if Monty found out, Time Agent or otherwise, he was still in the mafia and who knew what he would do?

Joe rushed back down the stairs and hammered on the door.

Monty answered and asked, “Yes? Did you do the spell?”

“Yes, yes, we better get out of here, bye!” Joe gabbled, grabbing Sam and Fred and pulling them out the door.

“What was that about?” Fred raised an eyebrow.

“Guys, we _have_ to get out of here! Now!” Joe started running up the steps.

From inside, he heard the boy shouting, “What do you mean, ‘he’s with them’?”

“Gotta run!” Joe hissed, running out into the cobbled street. Sam and Fred didn’t need to be told twice.

They had ducked into an alleyway before Joe frantically tapped inside the Book to get them to the Time Agency. When they had left, they didn’t see the girl rushing up to the entrance.

She placed a hand on her forehead and slid her fingers into her scalp as he realised she had missed them again. Faith wondered if Fred had received her message yet. She’d only sent it two months ago, from her perspective.

It would be nice if they could meet when their timelines matched up, she thought.

Gary skidded to a halt next to her. “Faith,” he snarled, “we have to go. _Now!_ ” Then he paled. “Faith, it was _them_ , wasn’t it?”

“Gary,” she began to argue, but he grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her along to the mafia’s house.

“If Dad knew you’d been moping over a boy – and a Time Agent – he’d look you in the pit, wouldn’t he?”

Faith stayed silent. They suddenly stopped and he glared into her eyes. “Wouldn’t he?”

Faith slowly nodded. “Yes,” she mumbled, downtrodden.

“Good,” Gary narrowed his eyes, “Let’s get the painting from Monty and put it on the next plane to Zurich. _Then_ we ‘sort out’ our little Italian friend. Dad doesn't want a Time Agent knowing about us, even if he ran away as well, faked his death. Think of this as tying up loose ends.”

Faith wished that she would prevent the Time Agents she had met from being ‘sorted out’ by Dad.

**Time Agency  
3rd February 2013**

“So, you said that Monty was in 1969?” Daisy wrote on the blackboard as Joe, Sam and Fred sat squashed into wooden desks. She murmured, “Explains why he was MIA in World War Two Italy.”

“But who were the kids?” Joe asked.

Daisy turned around, smiling. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Then Joe’s eyes widened. “You mean – Agent Andrew’s children?”

Fred felt a lump inside his throat. Then he shuddered as he realised this meant Monty had mistaken Sam for whomsoever Faith had taken over. Not only did Fred have a crush on the daughter of a fugitive, but she was just like Sam.

Great.

Daisy started to explain as she brought a blackboard out.

“From what we can work out,” she wrote three names on with chalk, “Andrew trained the children in specific areas. Certain jobs, if you may. The Magician, the Historian and the Soldier.”

The three boys looked at what Daisy had written.

_Joshua: Magician_  
_Faith: Historian_  
_Gary: Soldier_

She then waved her broom over the blackboard and stick-figures began to move as Daisy described what each occupation did.

“In the ‘time heists’ as they should be referred to as, you’d have to have one of each of these. The historian, to be the guide for the area. They’d need to research the time and place they were going to, namely the culture, the social class of whomever they were taking over, what happened to the place they were going to afterward in order to successfully hide whatever it was they took and specific events’ time-spans. Since this job is slightly less dangerous than being the magician or soldier, it makes sense that Andrew gave this particular job to Faith, since she takes the bodies of females.

“The magician would be educated in the spells that would pinpoint where they hid the supposed item – or, if it was on a boat or would later be moved by a third party, where it would end up – so that Andrew could take it in his present day or sometime in the future, his or ours. The magician would also know some defence spells and various others that would help, such as invisibility, illusion or flight. Being a Magician would be hazardous, as views on magic would change depending on the time and place. From what we’ve seen, most of the time Joshua would take the body of a foreigner to the area, or a shaman or a commoner, so any magic ritual would be seen by outsiders as either mad peasant superstitions or a mystical foreigner if it was a time and place where magic was viewed negatively or not believed in.

“The soldier, naturally, would be the fighter of the three, although the others were given some martial arts training. They would be defensive during a ritual or even to break into places. Being in this profession wouldn’t just mean fighting, boys. It would also include breaking and entering skills. The soldier would know the battleground and feel at home during difficult times. They’d also be able to fend for themselves to some degree. Gary appears to have taken the bodies of physically fit boys and men, some of which would have been in armies themselves. I’d say that out of the two boys, he would be the one that Faith spends more time with, for security in dangerous places if nothing else.”

Then she turned to the three of them, folded her arms and frowned.

“What I can’t for the life of me figure out is how do they choose the bodies they are going to take? Or find them? And why the host bodies die so soon after. The last one clearly isn’t always their fault; there have been incidents at sea or illness. But they’ve used a method that’s unknown to the Time Agency. And this is what makes Andrew so scary.”

Faith’s earliest memory was of sitting down a multi-coloured blanket. It had pictures sewn in of men on horseback and knights with swords. When she grew up, she realised it was a copy of the Bayeux Tapestry, meant for children, but at the time she hadn’t really noticed it.

Joshua and Gary had been sitting with her. All of them had just entered the toddling stage and kept putting toys in their mouths. She had stared across at Gary as he picked up a foam horse from the toy carriage across from them and giggled.

Faith had looked elsewhere, up at a very pretty woman dressed in pink. The woman had then lifted Faith up and smiled at her. A sad smile, Faith had noticed.

Then Daddy had come into the room. He had said something to the woman and she walked out of the room.

Faith hadn’t seen her since. When she asked Daddy, when she was old enough to talk, Daddy had shouted at her, saying that there had been no woman here.

She had asked Joshua and Gary after lessons one day, but they said the only adult they had known was Daddy.

But Faith always thought about that woman. The angel in pink.

 

On their tenth birthday, the children were taken to see the submersion pool.

They knew what they had been training for. It had been fairly obvious since Dad had started teaching them. They had a special power, having been born outside of time.

They could go back in time in a different way from everyone else.

The only books and TV they had been allowed to watch had involved time travel, history or magic. They had been taught basic self-defence, although Gary had been shown martial arts.

They had practiced day and night in the year leading up to this. But now, as they lay in the pool, their hair flowing out behind them like merfolk, Faith had asked, “Will this hurt?”

“No.” Dad had bluntly responded. That was how half of their questions ended. She had grown used to it.

There had been a brilliant green light and they were pulled upwards. Their eyes were sore and dry and they felt as weightless as a feather.

When they had landed, Faith had looked about herself. She was in a large garden with a fountain bubbling behind her. She was initially scared; she had never been outside her home before.

But curiosity took over and Faith walked towards the fountain. Looking inside, she saw her reflection staring back. But instead of a skinny, pale girl with an absurdly long plait, she saw a healthy, slightly tanned girl with light brown hair. It was still long, so that was something.

“Faith?” Joshua’s voice came from behind her. When Faith had looked over her shoulder, she saw, rather than a ginger-haired, scruffy mess, a tall, thin boy with darker hair.

Then Faith noticed what they wearing. He had on a short, light brown tunic and dirty sandals. She had on a long, pale blue tunic and her sandals were brand new.

“Where’s Gary?” she had asked.

“Here.” Gary’s voice came from fifty yards away. As he approached, Faith noticed that the body he was now currently occupying was blonde, with dirty skin and fingernails and a few teeth missing. He looked as if he had recently been in a fight and had lost.

“What now?” Faith asked her brothers.

“We find the mosaics and hide them before the volcano blows,” Joshua instructed her, “We have maybe forty-eight hours.”

“But – can’t we do anything else?” Faith asked him, “This place is – it’s so beautiful.”

Gary snorted. “Dad said we have to focus. Remember what he said he’ll do if we fail.”

“No.”

“You weren’t concentrating, were you?” Joshua grabbed Faith’s arm by the elbow. She tried to push him off, but this body was rather strong. “If we fail, he locks us up in the cellar.”

Faith’s eyes widened as she remembered. The cellar was a terrible threat. She had only been down there once, two years ago, after she refused to go to class and learn about yet another battle. No light, no source of heat, no toilet or bed. It was only four feet wide and five feet high, so she could barely stand up in there. And she had no idea what Dad had done, but it shook horribly at random times. She was only down there for twenty-four hours, but it had seemed like days.

Faith swallowed. It was strange feeling someone else’s spit go down her throat, but that was nothing compared to the cellar.

 

When they had completed their mission and barely avoided being singed by ash, they had woken up in the pool.

Dad had asked them what had happened during the mission, then went to check the co-ordinates of Joshua’s location spell. He told them to go and have a shower and go to bed. He’d be up with hot chocolate soon.

In the shower, Faith had asked the boys, “Where do you think our Mom is?”

“What do you mean?” Joshua had asked, rubbing conditioner into his hair.

“I mean, babies come from a mommy and a daddy. It can’t just have been Dad.”

Joshua shrugged. “Maybe she was with those people who tried attacking us when Dad closed the portal off.”

“Portal?” Faith stared at Joshua, puzzled. Even Gary seemed a little lost.

Joshua turned the shower off and grabbed a towel, starting to dry himself. His brother and sister followed suit.

“You don’t recall, do you?” he shook his head, smiling, “We were only four. Some bad people had found out where we were living in the mountains. The lights went off. We were in the gym. Gary and I were playing with toy swords and you were examining a toy castle.

“We were scared. I opened the door and called out for Dad. You two followed behind me, holding hands. He was shooting spells with his cufflink. I stood behind him and saw out into the snow. I asked him what was going on. He just shouted at me to hide under the stairs with you.

“The other people, the ones shooting green light at him, seemed to stop shooting beams and instead some of them chanted. Dad told me it was a tracking spell. A man in a green-and-purple checked shirt asked who we were and I cried out that he was my daddy.

“Dad yelled, ‘Joshua! Stairs! Now!’ And we ran. We hid under the stairs and we just cried in silence. Then everything stopped. I didn’t go out in case the bad people had come in. When Dad found us, he explained that these people wanted to use our abilities for their wicked ways. Dad – said he would always protect us.”

There was a lingering silence. Gary then asked, “Is that when we stopped having the view of the mountain from our window?”

Joshua nodded. “I actually prefer the sea view.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Brooklyn  
10th February 2113**

“And what’s the square root of 18,274?” Freddi asked as Jodie lay down on her bed.

The other girl groaned. “Why do they have such stupid questions?”

“It’s the final exams, Jodie. Everyone’s working their hardest. The boys had to do theirs early, so I consider ourselves lucky.”

Jodie snorted. “Their exams were before we had to study nine hours a day during finals. I can’t believe how Samantha managed to get through this!”

Freddi pulled her hair behind her ear and chuckled. Flicking through their math textbook, which weighed roughly about the same as two basketballs and was just as awkward to hold, she said, “I don’t believe there’s anything left to cover in here.”

Jodie gave out a small thanks, wondering why, out of all the countries the United States copied in terms of education, it had to be the Japanese. At least there were fewer tentacles in Brooklyn.

When Jodie went to get a lemonade, Freddi noticed a small glowing out of the corner of her eye. Turning around on the bed, she saw the drawer with the Book open and a gust of wind blew her through time.

Freddi landed on a clump of snow beside some trees. All she heard was the sound of gunfire around her. But time travel had taught her that in these situations she should stay absolutely still and as low as possible.

“Oh, hello.” She heard a voice next to her.

Freddi turned her head slowly to see a young man sitting next to her. Pulling the pin out of a grenade, he swung it like a discus into the path beyond the trees. From what Freddi could work out, he had just overturned a tank.

She squinted as she tried to take a good look at him. She had seen him before, but she wasn’t entirely sure where. Or, considering time travel, when.

Then she saw, in the moonlight streaming down as the clouds passed above. His eyes were bright green. He seemed to have noticed that she was scared and had grabbed her wrist.

“Believe me, Elizabeth,” he spoke in a hoarse whisper, “considering that we’re in the middle of Poland and surrounded by Nazi troops firing at the Allies and vice versa, your best bet is to stick with me.”

Freddi suddenly knew who he was.

“Isaac,” she murmured under her breath. He was definitely a lot taller now and he had stubble on his chin, as well as a scar under his left ear. But it was still the same boy from London.

He nodded. “Come on. We’d better –“

“You’re one of the green-eyed children,” she scowled and tried to pull her hand free, to no avail, “you used me and my friends.”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m not that interested. If I wanted, I could kill you over two dozen ways without any weapons. But I won’t. Because you suddenly appeared and need my help.”

“Well, _I_ need to get home,” Freddi argued as he pulled himself to his feet, dragging her along the path, “I don’t know why I came.”

“If you want to be picky, it was my sister’s idea,” Isaac sniggered, “Faith. Or Liesl, considering who she is in this time.”

“And what’s your name?” Freddi played her trump card, raising her eyebrow. They stopped in their tracks as she yanked away from him, smirking. “I don’t want to call you Isaac.”

“Why not?” he complained.

“Because it’s not your real name,” Freddi folded her arms, “and I know there are two boys. I just need to figure out which one.”

“Isaac is my name,” he grumbled, “technically. It’s – was – never mind. Just say ‘Gary’. It’s the name Dad gave me.”

Freddi wasn’t sure, but she thought that she saw guilt on his face. Or perhaps remorse.

She told herself it didn’t matter, as she had to stay with him if she expected to survive.

Gary explained as they walked up the path beside the river. Freddi could see that men and tanks were scattered everywhere, running in all directions. Then she saw that Gary was wearing an Allied soldier’s uniform.

“Are you in the army?” she asked.

He nodded, as he stood beneath a red brick wall and shone a flashlight up for a fraction of a second before a rope was thrown down. “Many, many times. In five different continents.”

He lifted Freddi up a few inches and she cried out in alarm. But then he hissed at her to hold the rope and climb up. She stopped struggling and was then slowly lifted up. Regaining her bearings, Freddi began to climb as much as she could.

When she got to the top, she found a scowling blond face looking in her direction. “What?” he gave out a small shriek. Freddi gripped onto the edge of the wall in case he decided to throw her over.

“Joshua,” a high-pitched voice whispered next to him, angrily, “let her up.”

“She’s one of _them_!” Joshua snapped, as the woman helped Freddi over the wall.

Freddi took a good look at Joshua and Faith. Or rather, the bodies they were wearing. Joshua was a tall, skinny blond in a Nazi uniform and Faith had her hair in a blonde bun, also wearing a blue-and-white blouse and long skirt, resembling a marionette doll from arts class in second grade.

Gary climbed over the wall, coiling the rope as he reached the top. “Joshua, it was Faith’s idea –“

“Oh, of course!” Joshua turned to glare at Faith, who had her arms on her hips, “You had to call a Time Agent here! In the middle of a flipping warzone! Just what got into you?”

“I’ll tell you when the masterpiece out,” Faith snarled, “Come on, Elizabeth. Let’s go.”

“I hate you.” Joshua snarled. Freddi wasn’t sure who he was talking to.

“I stole some of Joshua’s powder,” Faith explained as they slowly made their way down a spiral staircase inside a turret, “I’d been practising since 1485. Well,” she giggled, “two years, eight months for me. I – wanted to know more.”

“About us?” Freddi queried, “Wouldn’t Agent Andrew – sorry, your dad – be cross?”

Faith knew Andrew’s temper all too well.

When the three of them had had their eighth birthday, Andrew had given them their toy each. Of course, their ‘toys’ were usually just things that would later help them on their missions. Joshua had a magic kit, complete with a metal chalice and powder (except in this case it was just icing sugar), Faith had been given some tiny porcelain figures and a village to place them in, while Gary was given a set of ninja weapons.

“But we’re only going to Japan once,” Gary had blinked, a little surprised.

Andrew had frowned, pushing the weapons off of the table and pressing his palms down in front of him. “Well, sorry for being _thoughtful_.” Andrew sneered.

“No, Daddy, I –“ Gary gabbled. But Andrew was on a roll.

“I just want my little boy to be happy on his special day. I get some of the weapons used by _real_ ninjas. I had to prise the flick-knife out of a dead corpse’s hand and you dare – _dare_ – complain that they won’t fit for most of the missions?”

He had grabbed Gary by the back of his shirt and started pulling him towards the door. Joshua and Faith had stood up and started to run after them, Gary trying to get away and beating at Andrew with his small fists, before elbowing him just below the thigh.

Andrew let instantly let go and Gary had run back to his brother and sister. Faith was cowering behind Joshua. Joshua didn’t let his emotions control him, but he later told Faith that he had been terrified as well.

Andrew sighed and then crouched down in front of the three of them. “Look, I – I’m sorry that I had to shout at you. It’s just – well, kids, these gifts are really hard to get. Even if you can travel through time. And I don’t want to have to ruin your birthday. Hug?”

The three of them had paused, before they let Andrew hold his arms around Gary and Faith, squashing Joshua in the middle and leaning his brown head on the taller boy’s shoulders.

“I love you, Daddy.” They chorused.

“I love you three too.”

It wasn’t just Andrew’s temper that caused problems. He only seemed to think about himself. And when he showed even the smallest bit of consideration for the three of them, it took Faith more than fifteen and a half years to realise that he honestly didn’t care much about them.

It had happened when the three returned from hiding the original Nicaea Creed, physically drained and very hungry, they had found Andrew asleep on the couch. Usually, he’d have set out the dinner table for them or let them clean themselves up at some stolen vanity sets – though almost everything in their home was stolen at some point or another – but this time he had fallen asleep, potato chips scattered over the floor.

Faith had been silently furious that they had risked their lives in the fourth century and had just about managed to escape some angry priests before hiding the copy of the Creed inside a cave that was one day going to be next to a truck stop, while he had been watching reruns of another Seventies sitcom that he wouldn’t let them watch as it wasn’t part of their training.

“If you lot are hungry, you can get dinner yourself.” He had snarled when Joshua had finally dared to poke him, turning over.

The only food left in the larder were tinned spaghetti, tinned sweetcorn and Kool-Aid. They had also had to eat the food in their bedrooms as Andrew had smashed the dinner table to pieces.

Faith missed the days when the children had shared a room. When Andrew had been in a foul mood or they’d had a lot of physical training, they used to talk after lights out. The boys had climbed into each other’s beds, namely when Gary was drained and fell asleep almost immediately, and Joshua had held him tightly.

But as Joshua had grown older, he started to imitate Andrew more than ever. Maybe it was because he had spent the most times being locked up in the pit. Maybe it was because he wanted some control. Either way, with Joshua being brass and Gary spending all of his time inside their gymnasium or swimming pool, as well as the fact that there were no other girls to talk to, Faith had started to mope.

Now, as she looked directly at Freddi as they entered an empty, disused room with a frayed carpet, she started to wonder. Was it really possible that she could run away to the Time Agency, once her missions were up? And maybe she could get Joshua and Gary to come with her.

She needed to speak to Fred. She needed to plan a way.

Faith watched as Gary started listening with his ear to the stone walls, feeling along with his hands. Joshua was holding a map in his hands.

“Made from silk,” Faith whispered to Freddi as she pointed at the map, “SOE agents do that. Stops the map from rustling.”

“What are you looking for?” Freddi whispered back.

“ _Portrait of a Young Man_ by Raphael. It was last seen at this castle, just before the Allies took over. It’s worth a hundred million dollars if it was ever found.“

Freddi was impressed. This trio knew what they were doing. She swore she had heard about the painting, if only in passing in a boring documentary on Renaissance art that Sam saw once. Soon Gary nodded towards what was presumably a false wall. Joshua came over and placed his hands on the stone, closing his eyes. A slight green mist encircled his feet and started to glow. Markings beneath him on the circle started to appear. Joshua was muttering under his breath, but even if he had spoken aloud, Freddi wouldn’t have understood the words he was using.

Joshua lifted off a few inches from the ground and the stones then started to move into the wall. Before her eyes, Freddi saw the wall take itself apart and fly into a heap beside Joshua.

Then Joshua and Faith entered the room. Gary held a revolver in his hand and felt on his belt for a knife.

“Now how to fight?” he asked Freddi.

Freddi shook her head.

“Best get started,” he told her, “Take my knife. I’ve got spares.”

Freddi didn’t ask what he was doing. All she could hear were running footsteps all around them. No-one – Nazi or Allied – entered the room.

From behind her, a bright green light emerged. Freddi dared turn around, but one harsh look from Gary indicated this was a bad idea. Instead, she only heard Joshua say some strange words.

Trying to take her mind off from her curiosity and terror flooding inside her, Freddi asked Gary, “What was the worst time you ever did this?”

“The location spell, you mean?” he raised an eyebrow.

She nodded.

He puffed out his cheeks. “Perhaps in Baghdad, 1258. We needed to hide some House of Wisdom texts from the invading Mongol horde. We needed to pay some Silk Road merchants a lot of money to get it away safely. When Joshua started doing the spell the merchants said shrieking that he was a sorcerer and they had to kill him. I put up a good fight, but it was still three against one. Faith managed to persuade them that we were from the Chinese gods before we stuffed about three hundred books inside wicker baskets. The guys barely managed to get out of the city before it was seized. I think the only reason they managed to believe us was because we helped them out.”

Faith asked, wondering, “How old were you?”

“Eleven years, five months,” Gary replied, as if it was easy for such a young child to fight three grown men, “But we’ve had more stressful missions, not just location spells. Our first was just before the Pompeii eruption. We’ve done location spells while hidden during the siege of Troy, outrunning Emperor Qi’s guards, in a hailstorm in the Himalayas and during shipwrecks, shootouts and the Cretan eruption. We’ve been accused of being witches, spies, demons and fairies. My siblings and I have been catapulted over history and we’re worn out. But we can’t stop. Not until our missions are finished.”

Freddi guessed that these guys were just like she and the other girls. Just like the boys. Kids that were thrown into hazardous areas of history. Except that they took over other people’s bodies.

“The first time I travelled in time, I was ten years old,” she explained, “When do your missions stop?”

Gary answered, checking over his shoulder as Joshua finished the spell, “When we’re eighteen and a half. Dad says that we will be content by then.”

“And after you finish?” Freddi asked him, as Joshua and Faith started to carefully ease the painting inside a wooden crate.

Gary paused, frowning. “I’m not sure. My whole life has been centred on my time-travelling.”

The four of them somehow managed to carry the painting down the spiral staircase and out into the courtyard without any soldiers attacking them. According to Gary, the Allies were still advancing on the castle.

Then they heard the sound of a car horn. Seeing a car trundle up on the rocky path, Faith waved towards it frantically. As the car stopped beside them, Freddi saw the man inside was wearing an Allies uniform.

“Hey, who’s the gal?” he asked in a Cockney accent that was so thick you could cut it with a knife, “You didn’t say anybody else was coming.”

“Thanks, Jasper,” Joshua gabbled, as he and Gary heaved the crate into the back of the car, “She’s not coming. Just here to help.”

Then as Joshua and Faith got into the back, Gary turned towards Faith and held out his hand. A small pile of light green dust lay there.

“Bye,” he murmured softly, before he blew the dust out from his hand as it swirled around her and lifted her off the ground.

Before Freddi knew it, she was back in Jodie’s bedroom. She flexed her fingers in front of her, wondering what exactly had occurred.

Jodie came back in, grumbling as she held the drink in her hands. “What’s wrong, Freddi? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

 

At Konigsberg, the three children helped load the crate with the pieces of the Amber Room onto the boat headed for Scotland. The portrait was going on another boat, except this was going to Northern Ireland.

As they turned around to see the driver sitting at the wheel, he asked them, “You not going to tell the coppers about ol’ Jasper skipping out on his sign-up papers, are we? I mean, war’s over. You got exactly what you want. Shake on it, lads?”

Joshua smiled, putting his hand forward to shake, before Gary took advantage of the man’s distraction and pulled his revolver out and shot. The body slumped over the wheel as Joshua kicked it aside and sat on the front seat.

“You know what happens,” he told them, “German lovers are found dead by Konigsberg harbour after being shot by an over-zealous Yankee soldier. Runaway Jewish kid is found nearby, another causality.”

“I rather liked being Liesl,” Faith sighed, “She was popular.”

“That’s because we had four missions in these forms,” Joshua explained as Gary turned the key in the ignition, “These forms come and go. You know why they have to die, Faith. To make room for the future.”

Faith sighed, wrapping herself in the rug to protect against the January wind, “I know.”


	6. Chapter 6

**14th February 2013  
Time Agency**

Uncle Joe examined the list again.

He couldn’t help but look at the mention of the whereabouts of Richard III’s remains. The remains had recently been found underneath a parking lot in Leicester in England. Was this Agent Andrew’s plan? Had he funded the expedition? It definitely seemed so. Whether he had been behind the mission in 2013 or had simply travelled from 1995, Uncle Joe didn’t know, but he wanted to find out.

Within four days, the Time Agency had ordered the pictures of the skeleton, under the pretence of being from the Royal Historical Society. Nearly a hundred photographs of various parts of the skeleton were decorated all over the study area.

Uncle Joe thought about how Andrew had been in this very room, asking Edgar Cayce about historical mysteries. How bizarre that one of those mysteries was now right here, being looked over for anything that may lead to Andrew’s whereabouts.

He spent all night focusing on the skeleton, thinking about how he himself had once met Richard III. Of course, this had been years ago, before his nephew was born. Uncle Joe had taken part in the Battle of Bosworth Field, when he was in his early twenties. He had fought under Lord Stanley, as a matter of fact, a nervous man who had trouble deciding whether to fight for Richard or for Henry Tudor. It had been Uncle Joe himself who had suggested that Lord Stanley wait to see who was winning and then join his side.

As Uncle Joe pointed his pen at the pictures, it started dancing about gleefully.

“What is it?” he asked, before the pen started jabbing at a picture of the top of Richard’s skull.

He grabbed the pen back and then narrowed his eyes as he focused. Then he widened them again as he could see it clearly, a shiver running down his spine.

**19th February 2013  
Time Agency**

“So,” Joe crossed his arms as the three boys once again sat in possibly the most bizarre tearoom in existence, “you said there’s a secret message on the skull of a five-hundred-year-old skeleton?”

Daisy nodded, waving her hand and the teapot stopped pouring herbal tea into four hovering cups. “But the exact nature of the message is what perplexes us the most.” As she pushed the photo in front of them on the table, she explained, “Back in the 1960s, my friends and I – Connie, Lottie, Andrew, unfortunately – made up our own code. It was when we used to pass notes in class and the teachers couldn’t read them –“

“Wait,” Sam interrupted, crossly, “you had classes here that didn’t consist of meditating or standing in an Arctic puddle?”

“It was the 1960s,” Daisy giggled, “We were all nuts then.”

The boys wanted to say that Daisy still seemed nuts, but they wisely kept their mouths shut.

She carried on. “Anyway, after Andrew ran away, we stopped using the code. I didn’t need for it any more. But it’s likely that Andrew either told his children about the code or they found out. That is the code scratched here on the skull.”

The picture suddenly grew much larger. The boys felt a tiny bit queasy about seeing an enlarged picture of a skeleton in front of them, but they looked closer to see the markings.

The markings were incredibly tiny and done in amazing detail. They were possibly made with metal, Sam told the others, since it might not show otherwise. And since they were on the skull of a man who had been brutally murdered, even if archaeologists noticed them, they’d be written off as war wounds or maybe cracks from mishandling the body over the years.

But the markings made absolutely no sense. Fred kept turning his head, wondering if it was similar to when he, Samantha and Freddi were on Easter Island and you needed to read it several ways. But Uncle Joe then coughed loudly and said, “I think I’ll translate, guys.”

Then he read aloud.

_HEMINGWAY SUITCASE BURIED UNDER FRED’S HOUSE_

They stared at this for a few moments, taking in exactly what was said.

“How –“ Joe began, but his voice was stuck in his throat.

“Is that –“ Sam started to ask, but Fred answered for them.

“It’s for me. It’s from Faith.” He felt his blood run cold as he wondered exactly what this meant. Maybe Faith was trying to speak to him. Could – could the girl he’d been thinking about lately, the girl who had him feel funny deep inside, really be trying to contact him across time?

“We don’t know if it was Faith,” Daisy held a finger up, “We need to be careful. We need to take the suitcase from underneath your house – if it _is_ there –“

“Wait,” Fred scowled, “you’re not going to dig up my _house_ , are you?”

“Just the basement.” Uncle Joe remarked, as if it were nothing.

“That’s not the point!” Fred argued, “It’s _my_ house! And besides, what if she is sending a distress signal? Or even a warning? Shouldn’t we look into it? You said you went to their hideout, Uncle Joe! Why didn’t you help them? Or even help them now? That message from Hailey said that they’re only planning a few more stops!”

“Time is complicated, Fred –“ Daisy started to speak up for Uncle Joe, but Fred had now stood up, furious, and was about to walk out.

“No, I’m sick of this!” he snapped, “This Agency does bugger all and when someone’s in distress – someone who you yourself is being ‘cared for’ by an ex-Time Agent – sends a message – a message to _me_ , since she must have a _reason_ for choosing my house – you don’t even try anything! Damn the paradoxes; just get them after their final mission!”

There was an awkward silence after he had finished ranting.

Joe pulled his legs up onto the couch, thinking about how much this girl must mean to his friend. He found himself thinking about Joanne. And her – her _mother_. How Fred now had the opportunity that Joe would never have. Joe wanted his best friend to have that opportunity.

Daisy was thinking about when she was younger, back when she’d been training as a Time Agent. How pleased her friends had been when she was made a Time Page at sixteen years old. How Andrew, who had been the librarian back then, had congratulated her. His pride had felt genuine. He’d been like a big brother to her then, before he suddenly seemed cold and distant and ran away.

Uncle Joe also thought about Agent Andrew, but instead about how he had helped manipulate Jack, made him even crueller by shutting him away in the forbidding-sounding pit. How it had presumably been Jack’s idea to kidnap Julia, their dear sister. Julia still had nightmares, she had told him so. Then Uncle Joe thought about how the poor children must be feeling, living with that cruel man their entire childhoods.

Sam was thinking about how he would have reacted if it had been Samantha in that situation. Of course, it nearly was; Mad Jack had been interested in her, before she thought that she might turn out ugly when she grew up and suddenly changed his mind and said that Sam’s mother looked better…

Sam’s eyes widened as the idea came to him.

“We could ask Mad Jack,” he murmured.

All heads turned to him.

“Sorry, Sam, what was that?” Uncle Joe asked.

Sam swallowed, before he asked again. “We could ask Mad Jack.”

“Seriously?” Joe raised an eyebrow, “You want to ask _him_?”

“Uncle Joe said that nobody knows Andrew like Mad Jack does,” Sam nervously replied, “I think – it’s a start.”

Uncle Joe stood up, sighing. “I suppose we could. But boys, please don’t do anything unless Daisy or I are supervising you. Promise?”

“Promise.” All three boys answered in unison.

**19th February 2013  
Brooklyn**

Fred broke his promise.

He went into the basement as soon as he arrived home. He knew that the floor was wooden, so that if a suitcase was hidden down there, it would be relatively easy to find. Pulling on his brother’s soccer gloves and kneepads, Fred went down on his knees to check.

It took half an hour of using his dad’s toolbox, but he had prised enough floorboards out to put a torch in the space underneath and look around.

He spotted the suitcase fairly quickly. It had been shoved down a small, square hole cut into the concrete about four feet from him. Carefully pulling out the ninety-year-old suitcase, he placed it on his dad’s old workbench.

He knew very little about Ernest Hemingway, aside from the facts that Sam had given him. Hemingway’s wife had been going to Paris in 1922 when she accidently left a suitcase with his writing at the main Paris train station. It had never been found. It was indeed a historical mystery, Sam had said. Or rather _salivated_.

Knowing that whatever could be in here would be priceless, Fred was very careful indeed. Opening the lid with the tips of his fingers, he scanned the insides for anything that might stand out.

He saw one almost instantly. Despite not knowing much about Hemingway, Fred doubted that the twenty-something in post-World War One Europe would wrap a lilac ribbon about a curled up parchment.

**December 1922  
Gare de Lyon station, Paris**

The train pulled into the station.

Hadley Richardson, Hemingway’s wife, was sitting on a bench next to a young Austrian having his shoes shined. She had struck up a conversation with the smartly-dressed young man, whom she thought couldn’t be more than sixteen.

In fact, the body that Joshua had taken over was fourteen and nine months, as was the shoe-shiner’s, whom Gary was currently in control of.

“And you say the barber’s on Fereggiano is relatively cheap?” she asked.

Joshua nodded. “Yes, madam. My sister went there when we lived in Genoa.”

In reality, Joshua had picked up the barber’s from a guidebook of Genoa, dated 1924.

Then he took his chance. “My, I’m thirsty,” he looked inside his (empty) travel satchel, “is there anywhere to get water here?”

Gary took his cue. “Over there,” he pointed to a small shop, knowing it was there due to blueprints of the station, “the bottles are only three cents each. It’s a bargain.”

“Oh!” Hadley squealed, “I need to get some for the train.” She turned to the young Austrian. “Could you please be a dear and get some for me? I’ll pay you.”

Joshua was prepared for this. “I am so sorry, madam, but my train is due any minute.” He then got up and bid her good day, before he walked in the direction of the train to Bern.

Hadley sighed in annoyance. “All right. I guess I’d better get some.” Gary also took his cue and went over to another bench to shine a couple’s shoes.

She quickly stood up and started running as quickly as she could to the drinks stand. Faith stood behind it, ready to be as awkward as possible. “Good afternoon, madam, how can I help you?” she asked, as she had heard the young woman who usually ran this stall would ask. That young woman was currently tied up and stuffed inside the closet in the back and would later say to police that she believed it was a bungled robbery.

“Just one bottle of Evian, please,” Hadley asked.

Faith then tried to be difficult, but not difficult enough that Hadley would walk away. “All right then. Would that be a small, a medium or a large?”

“A medium, please.”

“All right then.” Faith knelt down in front of the cupboard and slowly moved the bottles about, trying her best to be as slow as possible.

This little show was Joshua’s chance. He walked out from the platform he had gone to, hopeful that no-one had noticed him. Andrew had told him that the best way to avoid drawing attention to yourself in a crowd when stealing something was to not look around too much. If you happened to, it was only when you had to pretend to be lost and ask for help from your target.

Joshua then sat on the bench he had been sitting at earlier and pulled out his newspaper. “Thanks for looking after my case,” he said loudly, but not too loudly, to Gary.

“My pleasure, sir,” Gary responded.

“No, no, no!” Hadley snapped at Faith, who had pulled out yet another large bottle instead of a medium, “I paid for a medium!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Faith feigned apology, “but these are all we have. You might need to pay extra. My manager wouldn’t allow it.”

“You are unbearable!” Hadley snapped, that British stiff upper lip suddenly disappearing in fury.

Faith looked up quickly as Hadley rummaged inside her purse. Joshua had picked the suitcase up and Gary was walking in her direction, taking his cap off and fanning himself with it, as they had prepared.

“Oh, I am so sorry, ma’am!” Faith gabbled, pulling a medium bottle out from the cupboard. “There is no need to worry; I found a bottle. Please forgive me.”

Hadley’s scowl dispersed as she took the water bottle. “I guess we all make mistakes,” she sighed.

Faith took the three cents and placed the multi-lingual ‘Closed’ sign up, going into the back.

Noticing the cupboard door was shaking and the girl inside was making a hell of a racket, Faith picked at it as she pulled her apron off and picked up her purse. “Oh, shut up, you silly cow!” she hissed before she kicked at the door.

The three of them met outside the station five minutes later. Hadley was currently shrieking at the lost property attendant, two security guards and another shoe-shiner, so of course it wouldn’t be long before the girl in the back of the drinks stall was found. It would be very unlikely that anyone would connect this with the theft, however. The Paris police would think that someone tried to rob the drinks stall and was distracted by the shouting Englishwoman pointing at the shop, leaving early with only a little money. And Joshua looked like a thousand other young Austro-Hungarian refugees in the city.

But they had to move fast. They had orders to take the suitcase on an airplane across the Atlantic to a warehouse underneath New York City that would one day be a fire station.

When they were waiting that evening at the airport, Faith slid her letter inside the suitcase and tried to remember the distance from the warehouse to what would become Fred’s house.

 

Twenty-four hours later, the tired and airsick three landed near what would one day become JFK Airport.

“I haven’t been here before,” Faith managed to smile, despite porridge and jasmine tea whirling about inside her stomach, “New York is a very pretty city, isn’t it?”

“Well, we need to move fast,” Joshua instructed her, although he looked ready to hurl, “We have to hide it underneath the construction work and get these bodies back to Paris before they wake up.”

“Maybe one day, I could go on an airplane with proper food. And a proper pillow.” Faith sniggered.

Joshua only rolled his eyes. Gary was too sick to say anything.

Gary’s sickness proved useful as when they got to the construction site, only two blocks from what would later be Fred’s house, when Joshua started asking, in a very thick Austrian accent, where Wall Street was, Gary vomited all over the sidewalk.

Faith took her chance. Grabbing the suitcase from Joshua and gabbling, she ran inside the building while the builders shouted in a mixture of English and German at the boys.

However, instead of burying it inside underneath a wooden panel, she headed out through the back. Her heart pounding in her chest – although it was technically Emese’s heart and chest – she turned around at the alley and headed down Hester Street, turning the corner of Orchard Street.

She could see the tenement where Fred’s ancestor Richard lived. At the moment, Richard would be talking with builders of his own, who were refurbishing the basement. Richard, who would now be twenty-one and had recently brought the whole tenement money received from a fifteenth-century dig, was currently in the garden as he talked to these builders.

As Faith snuck through and saw Richard, she remarked on how much the prince had changed. He was now much taller, healthier-looking and worked for himself instead of being waited on. It really must be the change of location, she wondered. Only seven months had passed for her since she had seen the little, terrified boy, but ten years had gone by for him. Time-travel was very strange indeed.

Faith nudged aside a wooden floorboard and shoved the suitcase underneath, being as careful as possible. Then she grabbed a hammer and started nailing down the floorboards, just in case.

Ducking out of the front before anyone could see her, she made her way back to the warehouse. Joshua was still outside, arguing with the builders and begrudgingly cleaning up the vomit. Gary was sitting on some steps, drinking some water and murmuring.

“Oh, Faith,” Joshua stood up when she arrived, “You were longer than I thought.”

“I’m fine,” she trailed off, “let’s go.”

**19th February 2013  
Brooklyn**

Fred had placed the suitcase back and opened the parchment inside his room. He had had use to his mother’s tweezers to hold the paper out on his desk, before placing rock paperweights at the corners.

_To Fred,_  
_I am sorry for not telling you about myself. I am Faith Wilson, aged fourteen years and nine months. I am writing this in an airfield while Joshua and Gary are outside looking for our pilot._  
_Andrew – my dad – made us steal Hemingway’s suitcase. I am supposed to hide it inside a different building. I do not know what Dad will do to us if he finds it gone. Maybe he won’t blame us. But he might beat us all the same._  
_I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve been Meg or Gemma or Elizabeth; why I was in Cyrenaica and in the Wash and medieval China. Why my brothers and I kept appearing everywhere. I don’t even know if you’ve seen me in the right order. My brother Gary met your friends in the Blitz. He said they were named Peggy, Natasha and Elizabeth, although I believe they may have been fake names. Do not tell me their names yet, as I may need their help in time._

The letter suddenly stopped there, even though there was at least half a page left. Faith must have been interrupted.

Fred then noticed something scrawled at the bottom of the page.

 _Costa Rica, 774 Nov_. Then there was a picture of a full moon and tiny stars.

**20th February 2013  
Brooklyn**

“They said not to interfere!” Sam scowled at Fred as the other boy sat on the floor, still holding the letter.

“But this way we could work out where they’re going,” Fred argued.

Sam clenched his fists by his sides as he looked out of the window. “This is bad. This is very, very bad!”

But Fred just groaned. “Listen, we should go and see.”

“It might be a trap, you imbecile!” Sam had grabbed his messy hair. “And I for one am not going to be possessed again!”

Fred gulped. He felt his legs turn to jelly and thought about the dream.

_You want Sam, don’t you?_

_No_ , Fred told himself, _I love Faith._

_That’s just because she’s a mystery to you. You’re attracted to the unknown. Even if Faith is the mother of your children, you’re still going to love Sam forever._

Fred shook his head and then asked, “Well, what are we going to do?”

Sam didn’t know what to say, but just then Samantha came out of the bathroom. “Hey guys,” she held her hand up, “I got bored after work so I decided to pop in.” Then she paused. “What are you staring at?”

**23rd November AD 774  
Costa Rica**

They landed in a heap on the sand. As Samantha climbed off of her great-grandfather, stuffing the watch inside her pocket (with an opening that could be sewn shut, after a nasty incident in Nanking).

“Well, we’re here,” Samantha held her arms out, rolling her eyes, “Costa Rica, AD 774. And there’s no sign of Faith, or whoever she’s using this time.”

“I’m going to get sunburn if I stay out here,” Sam moaned, looking around for a tree to hide under.

“You’re such a wuss.” Fred grumbled.

“I am not!” Sam teased back.

Then they saw a young woman walking down the bank and onto the beach. She was carrying a basket of fruit and only wore a brown grass skirt and a cloth around her chest.

“Hello, Fred,” she smiled as she came up, “Faith, aged fourteen years, ten months. I gather you read the letter yet?”

“Yes,” he cautiously answered, “You finished it abruptly.”

She told him, “Gary started calling for me. I had to improvise. Anyway, this is Costa Rica, where we are working on the Costa Rican Spheres.”

“Spheres?” Fred asked.

“The Spheres,” Sam pushed his glasses up, “are an archaeological mystery. Nobody knows why they were created, except that they were by the Diquis people.”

Fred imagined a bunch of people throwing discuses, before Sam blew that thought away. “Not that type of discus, Fred.” He shook his head, crossing his arms.

“Where are your brothers?” Samantha asked.

“Oh, hello, Natasha!” Faith politely held her hand up to shake.

“Natasha?” Sam asked.

“Yes,” Faith carried on smiling, “When Gary saw the girls write their names down in the Blitz, he saw her write her name as ‘Natasha Romanov’.”

The two boys paused, looking at each other and then Samantha. Then they burst out in hysterical laughter.

Samantha frowned, folding her arms. “And what is so funny?” she growled.

“You?” Sam pointed at her, “A hot assassin?”

“Is something the matter?” Faith asked, very confused.

“It’s a fake name, leave it at that.” Samantha pushed the boys to the sides as she came closer.

“Listen,” she told Faith, “The Time Agency wants to go after Andrew. He’s taken knowledge of historical mysteries, most of which aren’t meant for the world yet. It could cause paradoxes if he releases them so early.”

“But he’s not,” Faith shook her head, puzzled, “He told us that he wants to know, not share it with the world.”

“But he’s greedy, isn’t he?” Samantha pleaded, “We found King Richard’s skeleton. And the Staffordshire Hoard is going to be found in 2014.”

“Andrew needs to fund our time travel.” Faith argued, still naïve.

“Funding your time travel wouldn’t cost anything,” Sam told her, “It’s just magic, isn’t it?”

Faith frowned, looking down at the ground. “Look, I – don’t want to argue with Dad. What he says goes.”

“But he’s dangerous,” Fred begged, “All the kids you possess end up dead! Elizabeth Haywood was hung, Gemma drowned, Ling was probably stabbed, I don’t know what happened to Meg –“

He trailed off for a moment, then carried on. “And who knows what’s going to happen to this body?”

“She’s going to die of sepsis in three days.” Faith muttered, nonchalantly.

It was almost as if she didn’t care that the body she had possessed was about to die.

“They need to die,” she explained, “Look at the dates.”

“The dates?” Fred asked her.

“Why do you think we only have a hundred or so missions? There are so many we could do. We could find the lost coronet of Llewellyn. The La Noche Triste treasure. The Kruger millions.”

Samantha and Fred looked over at Sam, who murmured something about knowing what they were.

Faith carried on talking, desperately, “The dates line up. Emese Boros, the body who wrote the letter, was born on 7th March 1908 and died on 8th December 1925 from a gunshot wound. But Lisel Herrmann was born on 14th March 1928 and died on 17th January 1945, also from a gunshot wound. And Rosa Scuderi was born on 18th November 1954 and died in the early morning of 20th May 1973.”

While Samantha and Fred were still trying to take in the dates, Sam held a finger up. “Those lives don’t intersect. They're all alive at different times.”

Faith went on. “I was born on 23rd September 1977, albeit outside of time. But that’s all Dad tells us.” Then, before she could say any more, a voice called out.

“Faith!” It was Joshua. “You’re needed, now!”

Faith looked back at the trio, then ran back into the jungle.

“Faith, come back!” Fred shouted, but Sam grabbed his friend by the shoulder.

“Fred, we just need to leave her.”

“But I can’t! I need to save her!” Fred ran after Faith, his friends following.

Fred only got close enough for Faith to tell him, “Meet me at the Basilica of St. Denis, 1795.”

He wanted to ask why, but she quickly held his hand in hers and then kissed him on the cheek. She withdrew as Fred blushed, before he let her run off into the jungle.

"Just leave her," Sam persuaded him when he caught up, "Let's go home."

"But she was going to tell us," Fred argued, but he didn't put up a fuss as Samantha operated the watch, "I still want to know why..."

He didn't finish his sentence, only lightly touching where she had kissed him.

What was it about herself that she wasn't telling him?

What it about _them_?

**20th February 2013  
Time Agency**

Uncle Joe groaned as he sank into an armchair in the tearoom. His brother had been no help, only slightly smirking back at him.

Uncle Joe knew that Faith was going to one day be with Fred. But he knew little else about the green-eyed children and Mad Jack certainly wasn’t going to divulge.


	7. Chapter 7

Erik slumped on the bed as his dad sat on the chair.

“Dad,” he asked, “What bits are going to tell me? You told me that you’d say what happened when you and Mom were dating.”

Fred chuckled. “I wouldn’t exactly say _dating_ ,” he told his boy as the nine-year-old pulled the duvet about his bent knees, “but I do remember when she kissed me again.”

**23rd February 2013  
Brooklyn**

Fred was bored.

Sam was spending the weekend with his parents up at Niagara Falls. Joe was busy looking after Joanne. The girls were all doing their own stuff, a century in the future.

Sometimes, Fred wished that he could own the Book so that he could travel to faraway places. He wouldn’t even mind going back to Nevada. Or Constantinople. Madagascar, probably not.

The nightmare happened again last night. But instead of Mad Jack using Sam’s body to taunt him, it was Faith standing by the fireplace. The room had been in utter darkness, aside from a glow about the fireplace. He had placed his hand out to touch her on her right shoulder, but she held grabbed it with her left hand. Without turning round, she had hissed, “1795.”

He was still confused as to what that meant. Researching the Scepter online, he found that it was presumably lost in 1795, during the French Revolution, from an abbey named the Basilica of Saint Denis. But he could find very little outside of what he already knew.

“1795,” he mumbled, tapping his fingers on the desk in front of the computer, “don’t think I’ve been there before.”

Then he felt his cheek tickling. Reaching up to scratch it, he saw green dust sparkling as it fell to the ground, like ominous glitter.

Shrieking, he felt himself being thrown backwards through time as the dust flew about him.

**24th August 1795  
Paris**

The next thing he felt was something cold and wet underneath his bottom. Daring to glance down, Fred saw that he was sitting in a muddy puddle in the middle of cobbled streets.

He immediately stood up and started beating it off, groaning about why couldn’t they ever land on a couch. Then he heard a snigger from a doorway nearby.

Looking up, he saw a young woman dressed in rags and carrying a wicker basket filled with small loaves of bread. She had red hair done up in a bun underneath a kerchief and a lot of freckles. Despite this, when she waved happily and called out, “Hi, Fred,” he knew instantly that it was Faith.

He frowned as he came up to the doorway. “That wasn’t funny,” he grumbled at her, “Did you bring me here?” Fred held a hand on his hip and pointed at her.

Faith stopped giggling and nodded. “ _Oui_ , as they say here,” she handed him a small loaf, “Bread?”

“No thanks,” he sulked, “My cheek feels like I’ve eaten Agent Vicky’s chilli and caramel surprise.”

Faith apologised, “Sorry for that. But I had to kiss you so that when you next said ‘1795’, you’d come to me.”

“You could have told me that,” Fred grunted, “how long has it been?”

“Fourteen months since Costa Rica,” she explained, leading him inside and past many stone slabs, “I didn’t want to be silly and go after you when you were eighteen, but I was fourteen. I thought that I needed to mature before I could do anything.”

Fred wanted to say that it was stupid of her to do this instead of ask for help on her next mission, but he supposed that maybe an older version of him may have met a younger version of her, so he kept his mouth shut. Then he looked about at the stone slabs and asked, getting a little scared, “Err, Faith, these aren’t _tombs_ , are they?”

“Most of them are empty.”

“Not helping!”

Then she led him to the main part of the church. The main congregation was completely empty. Despite the situation, Fred couldn’t help but be amazed at the inside of this ancient and magnificent church.

“My brothers will be by shortly,” Faith knelt down in a pew and opened a small prayer book, “They don’t know I’ve brought you, so you have to keep it secret.”

Inside the prayer book, Fred saw that she had a letter folded inside. She looked up at him and smiled.

“Not the first time I’ve hidden something inside a book. Religious texts tend to be the only available books for peasants, so we sometimes use them. Often they’re hollowed out and we’ve hidden artefacts inside, but on this occasion we have blackmailed a priest into bringing us the Specter of Dagobert by saying that we can show the letter to the authorities, showing that he helped the deceased royals in their failed escape. Which is, of course, against the Revolution and made him perfectly happy to assist us.”

“You’re not going to kill him, are you?” Fred asked, nervously.

She shook her head. “No. He’s going to live ten more years. But we have to move quickly.”

“Why did you bring me along?” Fred asked, “It seems as if you have everything under control.”

“I wanted to see you.” Faith shrugged as if it were no convenience.

“Oh, that’s just great!” Fred snapped, his voice echoing around the church.

Then Faith grabbed him by his shirt collar and shoved him out of sight. “Hey! What gives –“ Fred snapped, before she slapped her hand over his mouth and looked up.

Fred was about to push her away when he heard Joshua calling. “Liliane? We’re here.”

 _Lilane?_ Fred thought. _Oh, that must be who Faith is controlling._

She sat up in her seat and smiled. “Afternoon.”

Fred peeked out around the edge of the pew and saw two boys, both dressed in blue jackets, white trousers and red caps. The two of them were also carrying rifles. There was a middle-aged priest between them, who looked increasingly uncomfortable.

“You are to take the Scepter, yes?” he asked the taller of the boys, “Then you are to leave me alone?”

Joshua had walked a few paces in front, before he looked at the priest over his shoulder, gripping the rifle between his hands. Then he stopped looking so stern and gave a quick smirk. “Of course, _pere_. One has to make enough money to get away, after all.”

“You will?” the priest seemed desperate to save his own skin, “You said so yourself, monsieur – your sister has found the Scepter?”

“I have,” Faith stood up, climbing over Fred as she did so, walking up quickly, “but my brother and I need to check if it is genuine before we go. I hope you do not mind if our friend here stands guard.”

It was eerie how much her character seemed to have changed. Then again, Fred supposed that she was used to acting by now.

But which one was really her, he wondered, the kind one or the cruel one?

He watched as Joshua and Faith walked back into the crypt area. Then a vivid green glow, the same colour as the time mist, came from inside.

The priest must have tried to move, because Fred heard Gary tapping the bayonet of his rifle against a wooden pew. “I would not move if were you.”

“But they – that is _witchcraft_!”

Gary only chuckled slightly. “The Revolutionaries have more on their mind than witchcraft.”

A few minutes later, Joshua and Faith walked out of the crypt, carrying a gold scepter almost two feet in length. As they placed it inside of a coffin, Fred heard the priest exclaim, “You were such good children! How did you end up this way?”

Joshua sneered, “Sometimes I wonder the same thing.”

The priest than stammered, “But Louis – Liliane –“

“We are not those people.” Joshua snarled, as Faith left them and quickly scampered over to Fred, picking up the basket from next to him.

“Goodbye, Fred,” she whispered, as she kissed him in the same spot, “See you in Staffordshire. And no, you won’t go when you say it.”

“But how will I get there?” he asked, as the familiar green dust swirled about him.

Faith only smiled at him before he was hurtled forwards in time.

Fifteen minutes later, the coffin had been lowered onto a barge and was now floating down the River Seine, before it would go on a boat to Oak Island in Nova Scotia. The problem with some of the missions was that they couldn’t hide the artifacts themselves.

“Can we shop for a while before we go?” Faith asked, chewing on a piece of bread, “I’d like to look around Paris.”

Gary looked up at Joshua and said, “It’s not as if anyone will stop us if we’re wearing these.”

Joshua frowned at them. “You know the rules,” he spoke through gritted teeth, “how many times do I have to tell you?”

Faith and Gary shared a miserable look before they sat down at the edge of the bridge, closed their eyes and let themselves descend.

The next thing Faith saw was the immersion pool about her. Sitting up in the cold water, she sighed to herself as she stepped out and picked her towel off from the rock.

“I’d like to go shopping _sometime_ ,” she complained as she fastened it around her chest, before she looked behind her to see her brothers doing the same behind two other large rocks.

Andrew looked up from the book he was reading on a sun lounger nearby. “What’s the problem?” he sighed, in a tone that suggested he wasn’t really interested.

“Faith wants to go shopping,” Joshua groaned, squeezing the water out of his hair and putting it up in another towel, “I told her why it was a bad idea.”

Andrew placed his book on the table next to him and walked up to Faith, towering over her. He looked irritated, but she thought that was because she’d interrupted his reading rather than anything concerning his children.

“Faith, when your missions are finished, I will take you shopping.” He didn’t sound promising. Faith thought that he would probably find another excuse not to when the time came.

“But that’s two years away,” she groaned, “I’m tired of being cramped up in here.”

“It’s hardly cramped,” Joshua told her in a tone of voice that suggested that she stop whining, “we’ve got thirty-eight rooms.”

Gary mumbled something about not being able to use the tennis court since Andrew had a fit and broke the rackets, but nobody listened.

“I want to go somewhere!” Faith argued loudly, “I want to actually do something. And not in someone else’s body!”

“They’re your bodies, Faith.” Andrew’s cheeks were turning pink, which was never a good sign.

“That’s not the point!” she argued, “I want to be –“

She stopped herself before she could say, “Be with Fred and his friends.”

“That’s enough from you!” Andrew snapped loudly. The children fell silent. Even Joshua was intimidated. Andrew looked between all three of them, before he instructed, “Get in the shower! Now!”

**23rd February 2013  
Brooklyn**

Fred landed back at the computer. He closed the webpage he had been looking at and stood up. He was going to go and play basketball in the back yard for now. He didn't even care if Mike came back and said that he was still rubbish; Fred just wanted to get his mind off Faith.

As he stood up, he felt something in his back pocket. Pulling it out, he saw that it was a crumpled piece of paper. Faith had given him another message, only this time she had been able to write more information.

_Pophnei Island, Pacific Ocean, June AD 1244 - 16Y 4M_  
_Staffordshire, England, July AD 808 - 17Y 4M_  
_Flagstaff, Arizona, 10th May 1881 - 17Y 5M_  
_Angkor Wat, Cambodia, July AD 1150 - 17Y 6M_  
_New York, December 1925 - 17Y 8M_  
_New Zealand, January AD 1296 - 17Y 11M_  
_Athens, Greece, 438 BC, November - 18Y_  
_Valley of the Kings, Egypt, 1,350 BC, July - 18Y 4M_  
_Northern Italy, September AD 1418 - 18Y 5M_  
_Washington D.C, May 1973 - 18Y 6M_

_It's a date._

 

Fred saw that his son had fallen asleep, holding his teddy close. Getting up and turning the light off, he looked over at his boy.

He was still too young for some bits, Fred told himself sadly as he strummed his fingers along the door frame. Such as what Sam found out.

 

**1st March 2013  
Brooklyn**

Sam sat on his bed as he waited for Joe to come back upstairs with his magic kit.

Joe had said that he had been practising whenever he had a spare moment. Sam didn’t want the let the poor guy down by saying yet again that his magic tricks were about as convincing as saying that a polar bear was a cheetah, but he let Joe go down to get his things anyway. Sam lay down on his back as he looked at the Book, which Joe had brought over, on the bedside table.

Sam had spent the whole day at his mother’s strange exercise workout, which meant that after four hours of strenuous pummelling, Sam felt like he’d been in the washing machine. As a result, he lay down on the bed and let himself drift away to sleep without realising it.

When he was asleep, he found himself in darkness. A green star was shining brightly to his right. The more Sam stared at it, the more it resembled a kaleidoscope.

When they had been stuck on a mountainside up in Canada, Fred had confided in Sam about what he had seen when he was trapped in the Book. He said that an angel in pink had shown him Faith. Where Faith had seen him for the first time.

Sam hadn’t known what to say. Who knew what was real when you used the Book?

But now, he felt afraid as he looked over at the star. Clutching his hands in front of his chest, he edged away as a form came out.

But this time the angel wasn’t in pink. She was wearing a dark blue flowing shirt and a silver skirt. Instead of shoes, she wore long, gold leg armour. Along her breast were tiny, gold stars which looked like metal in Sam’s opinion. Falling from them were tiny gold threads. Her hair also wasn’t blonde, but bright red.

Sam asked, trying his best not to make his voice quiver, “Were you the angel Fred saw?”

She closed her sad eyes and shook her head. A voice inside Sam’s head told him that she was not. Then she held her hand out and pressed her palm on Sam’s forehead, between his eyebrows.

Sam could see a wooded area, along with a name whispered in his ear; Wei August. Then another forest, with mountains in the distance behind the trees. The name Ruth White was murmured. Then a date.

20th September 1977. And another. 21st September 1977.

The angel took her hand away and smiled down at Sam. Then she heard her voice inside his head tell him that he shouldn’t blame Joshua. He only copied Andrew because he had been scared.

Then Sam heard something that he never would have expected.

The angel told him that she was disappointed in her little boy. She hadn't wanted Joshua to be so violent, that she wanted a better life for him.

“You’re Joshua’s mother?” Sam asked, confused, “But Faith has a different mom, doesn’t she?”

But then light fluttered into Sam’s eyes and he could see Joe kneeling above him, eyebrow raised. “Sam!” he scoffed, slapping him playfully on the arm, “You can’t exactly fall asleep when you have me over!”

Sam sat up, letting Joe show him some nutty trick with cards and a cup and ball. It was terrible and Sam had absolutely no idea what his friend was trying to show, but all he could think of was the angel.

**1st March 2013  
Time Agency**

“Hello, brother dear,” Mad Jack looked up from a game of Patience as Uncle Joe stepped into the cell, “how are you?”

“You haven’t asked me that in thirty years,” Uncle Joe frowned, “Why are you so happy?”

Mad Jack stood up and folded his arms, looking cocky. “You’re here to ask about Andrew’s children, aren’t you? My window looks out onto the main garden, you know. I can see that Fred’s almost at the age where he and Faith are dating. If you can call that dating.”

The cogs in Uncle Joe’s brain started whirring. If that was true, maybe they’d have a chance to arrest Andrew. But Uncle Joe didn’t want to have to use his nephew’s friend to do that.

Mad Jack smiled his wicked smile. “Andrew taught me everything I know, brother dear. So answer me this; how powerful do you think he is? He won’t let you get in his way. After all, he might not commit most of his murders himself, mainly getting his kids to do it, but he has killed before.”

“How do you know?” Uncle Joe scowled.

But then Mad Jack sat down on the bed, staring right ahead. After a few seconds of silence, Uncle Joe turned around to leave the cell.

Before he could grab the door handle, however, Mad Jack spoke up. “That’s because I saw the body.”

Uncle Joe slowly turned back, a shiver going down his spine. “What – do you mean?” he gingerly asked.

But his brother slowly shook his head, still smiling.

“Remember when I took Julia? Not long after I killed Hedgewing? The reason I didn’t lock her in the pit while I had her hostage was because there was already a body stored in there. Andrew said that the dead woman was no longer useful. Because the children had grown up and didn’t need her any more. Well, technically she was underneath the pit, but Andrew had been hammering some new spikes into the floor –“

“Jack!” Uncle Joe snapped at him.

Mad Jack answered with, “Nice to see you actually have a backbone, brother dear. Anyway, the body belonged to a certain special woman. Her name was Isabel Wilson. And she is Faith’s mother.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is basically a bunch of snippets on what happens to Fred when he goes back to visit Faith. How they take over bodies will be revealed in the next chapter, I promise.
> 
> If you have not seen my drawings on DeviantArt, here is the link. They're not very good, but I have tried my best.
> 
> https://www.deviantart.com/darkfairybl
> 
> I will need to say in this chapter that it does get a little unnerving when revealing the circumstances of Faith's mother. There's no sex this time, thank goodness, but I wanted to warn you anyway.
> 
> By the way, the stuff described as having on the airplane _really did_ happen. I am dead serious. I love _Horrible Histories_.

**AD 808**  
**Staffordshire, England**

“Doesn’t this get irritating?” Fred asked as Faith beat the clothes in the tub, water flying everywhere. The two of them were standing in the middle of a field in Saxon Britain. Fred had arrived with Jodie and Samantha about two hours ago and they were currently slaving away inside the lord of the manor’s barn. Once Fred had seen Faith beckoning to him from behind a wall, he had gone over, before she threw women’s clothes at him and told him that if he didn’t want to stick out, he’d better put them on. Personally, Fred thought that these clothes were too long and the wimple wouldn’t stay put.

“Not really,” Faith explained, pulling back this body’s brown plait behind her shoulders as she stood up, “I do the same at home.”

“At home?” Fred asked.

Faith nodded. “My house does not have any washing machines. I have to learn how to clean clothes this way. I’d love to use a real washing machine some day. I glimpsed one when I was in Nazi Germany, but it didn’t work very well. It must have been a rather old prototype.”

“And you do the washing by yourself?” Fred asked, a little angry at the idea that her father and brothers may have simply shoved all of this on her.

Faith shook her head. “Joshua and Gary know as well. Just as well, since in some bodies we have had to be homeless.”

She paused, looking down at the ground. “I – I don’t want to tell you about myself. My – brothers will be angry.”

“Faith, if you want to help me, you have to explain everything,” Fred took her wet hand in his, “You said that we’re meeting in the right order now.”

“But next time I meet you, we might not,” Faith replied.

Fred’s mind went back to Hailey’s memory. Faith had taken Mei’s body then. She’d been eighteen then. Faith was now only seventeen and four months. Time travel was difficult.

Fred tried to quickly change the subject. “What are you looking for here?”

“The Staffordshire Hoard,” she answered, finishing up the laundry and leaving it to soak, “Three and a half thousand pieces, the largest treasure of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver objects ever found. The boys and I are going to bury it in a nearby field and it won’t be unearthed until 2009.”

Fred had to admit that this was impressive. “But how does Andrew benefit from the treasure?”

“Dad funded the archaeology dig in secret, so he ended up with a majority of the profits. This is only one of his smaller excavations, though. There are a lot of bigger ones out there that will help us.”

“How?” Fred wanted to know.

Faith gripped the sides of the wooden tub before she smiled sheepishly. “The Staffordshire Hoard is a good find,” she told him, “but there are a lot of treasures out there that more people will want to find, to see in museums and studied by science. The treasures from the Pyramid of Giza, for one. The Ark of the Covenant, for another. Then there’s a copy of Hammurabi’s Code, King John’s Crown Jewels, the treasures of the Knights Templar, the lost city of Atlantis, a lost Shakespeare play, Raphael’s _Portrait of a Young Man_ –“

“Stop, stop!” Fred laughed, “You sound like Sam!” Then he asked, amazed, “You’ve been to all those places?”

Faith nodded. “I’ve been as far back as the fifth millennium BC.”

“Which mission was that?” Fred was intrigued.

“Atlantis,” she responded, “I was sixteen years, six months.”

Fred pondered again about the girls she had taken over. Not in the same way that Mad Jack had taken Sam’s body, but she had taken them over somehow.

“Which mission was your favourite?” he tried asking her.

“That’s a tricky one,” Faith chuckled, “When I was Ling, I was a princess. When I met Captain Kidd, I was a pirate. When I took over Emese, I had her body four times. She had to flee with Faberge Eggs hidden inside a child’s packing case in an airplane from World War One. It was windy and rickety, but it was definitely exciting flying over the Atlantic.”

Fred remembered when they had been fifteen and had flown with Ross and Keith Smith during their journey from England to Australia in 1919. He had shouted at Joe that it was a stupid idea to try and fly from India (where the Book had taken them and where they met the pilots) to Australia, where the Book was at the finish line, hidden inside a trophy case.

But the three of them had found themselves squeezed into a hollow space at the back of the aircraft, as if they were luggage. This was while they were attacked by hawks and a bull, accidently landed on a racecourse in Burma, flew through cloud-covered mountains in Thailand and bamboo mats fly about the cabin over Indonesia. Sixteen days of unfortunate flying, Sam’s airsickness, and crumpets lead to Fred promising himself that his next vacation would be underwater.

Faith took the laundry inside as Fred looked about. He really hoped that Jodie and Samantha wouldn’t see him dressed as a woman.

As Faith placed the laundry down near the front entrance of the manor, Fred turned around and stood outside while Joshua and Gary approached from the far end of the room.

“Have you got the rings?” Joshua whispered to her.

Faith nodded, patting the bundle of cloth hidden underneath the upper part of her kirtle. “Do you have the gold crosses?”

He nodded as well, indicating underneath his monk’s robes. “We should get going soon,” he replied, “it will be dark and we can go home then.”

“All right.” Faith replied, as she followed Joshua out of the door.

Fred saw the three of them walking down the path and towards the forested area. Joshua and Gary had taken the forms of a monk and a stonemason, although he couldn’t tell which was which from over here. Faith looked behind her quickly as Fred ducked behind the manor.

Seeing Jodie and Samantha flat on the ground by the pigpen, he tried to slip past them and into the main house so he could take these women’s clothes off.

“Fred?” Samantha’s voice rang out, “Is that you?”

As he turned, cheeks red, he saw Samantha had found her strength back and was now pointing and giggling. Jodie had turned her head to see what her friend had found so funny and now started to laugh too.

“Don’t even ask.” Fred grumbled as the time winds flew from the Book underneath Jodie’s shirt and took them into the future.

 

**10th May 1881**  
**Flagstaff, Arizona**

Faith’s host this time seemed similar to Elizabeth, Fred thought to himself as he looked out from a bush to the direction of the hut she had walked out from.

Joe and Sam were currently at the pioneer outpost, unable to go anywhere because supposed robbers had attacked a stagecoach. The robbers in question had in turn been attacked by Faith and her two brothers, who were now hiding at their own cabin.

Fred slid down as he approached Faith. This body had short red hair and a ton of freckles. “Hey, Fred,” she smiled at him gleefully, “Flagstaff loot’s almost ready. We’re hiding it here.”

“Where are the boys?” Fred asked.

Faith picked up a knapsack from the ground and slung it over her shoulder. “Joshua’s doing the location spell. Gary’s guarding as usual. So, what date are you from?”

“6th March 2013,” Fred replied, sitting down on a tree stump nearby, “You?”

“Fifteen,” she told him, “And since you told me about the list of dates, I can give them to you in nine months when I meet you in France.”

Fred was about to ask why she hadn’t said that she was from earlier in her life, but then he smirked at her cheekiness. “You really make me laugh you know,” he told the girl, “So what’s this girl called?”

“Pearl Cartwright.” Faith spat out some tobacco at a spittoon on the patio. “She has a tobacco habit. Don’t worry your little blond head about it; she’s not dying yet.”

Fred was about to ask how long Pearl was going to live for when Faith answered for him, eyes downcast.

“May 1883. She’s going to die in a train crash in Oregon. From smoke inhalation, oddly enough. Life is ironic, don’t you think?”

“But Pearl doesn’t have to die,” Fred argued, “None of them need to.”

Faith smiled, showing off Pearl’s rotten, tobacco-stained stumps, “They actually do need to, Fred. I’ll explain when we’re older.”

Fred wanted to ask again about them, but then he saw the distant figures of Joshua and Gary coming towards them on horseback. Setting off, he climbed up to the path again, making his way to Flagstaff.

 

**July 11th AD 1150**  
**Angkor Wat, Cambodia**

As Joshua and Gary were working hard on the final stages of the Angkor Wat temple, Faith was crouched down outside the building site, in the form of a servant, hiding a stolen parchment inside a clay jar.

Since Gary had been an elephant driver in this time and Joshua was on call as a priest, with neither of them getting any breaks until sundown, it had been Faith’s job to try and hide parchment detailing why the temple was being built.

She had seen Fred arrive when she had been by the river, under the pretence of gathering water, before telling him that this one in particular was too dangerous and she would make it up to him, so goodbye, then sent him back to his time with the dust.

She hoped he wasn’t too annoyed.

As she hid the jar under her sarong, Faith walked down some grassy steps to just outside of the city.

Making sure that no-one was around her or that any predatory animals were hiding, Faith placed the clay jar in the hole that the boys had dug. Six feet deep and as narrow as a chimney flue, she did her best not to tip the jar over or get it stuck. Knowing that Andrew’s calculations would be correct, she was safe in the knowledge that a tourist stand would one day be above the hole.

Casting the spell and letting the green circles move underneath her, she tried her best not to be distracted by thinking of Fred.

Because if she did anything wrong, she knew the consequences. Andrew was getting jumpy lately, probably because they were on their last few missions. It wouldn’t just be the pit. It would be something far worse. His temper was getting shorter and he swore far too much.

But after the missions were over, Faith wondered as she walked back to the city, what then?

 

**AD 1296**  
**New Zealand**

Fred sat on the logs as he watched Faith’s tall, stick-thin body hold her arms out and walk along one. Joe and Freddi were already taking part in the Maori celebration and he was a little bored.

“You know,” Faith broke the silence by jumping off the log and sticking her feet deep into the sand, “there are lots of species that are native only to New Zealand. Kiwi birds, short-tailed bat…”

“Hobbits,” Fred joked. He then sat up straight. “Faith, can we have one conversation that’s not about where and when your host comes from?”

“What do you want me to talk about?” she asked, genuinely confused.

Fred slapped a hand to his eyes, groaning loudly. She was almost as useless as Sam.

“Look,” he told her, standing up, “Do you watch any movies?”

“No.”

“Read any books?”

“No.”

“Do anything that _isn’t_ related to your missions?”

“No.”

Fred grumbled and rubbed the back of his neck. This was going to be harder than he thought.

Meanwhile, at the ceremony, Joshua eyed Joe and Freddi suspiciously. The Time Agents, he told himself, ones that pop up everywhere. If he wasn’t supposed to hide some more evidence of when the Maori had arrived, several precious goods stolen from each family here and the chief’s body once the ceremony was over inside an underground cave that would one day under an elementary school swimming pool, he would strangle the agents right here.

As it was, Joshua had a job to do at the campfire, as a Tohunga in training; the Maori shamans. Gary was prowling the outskirts of the ceremony grounds, spear in hand. Who knew where their sister was.

But Joshua had an inkling. He’d seen the blond Time Agent boy, the one with the hat, talking to her. If Faith wasn’t so obsessed with this boy, Joshua would have killed him in an instant. And if anything did happen to the boy, Faith would probably do something to him.

Joshua had been closer to his siblings when he was younger. He had helped them with their reading and showed Faith how to draw things to her across time with magic. How he regretted that now. When he made his knives, he’d sometimes give Gary one for dart practice. When he made jewelry, he sometimes gave them to Faith, even though they didn’t actually have any use for them. Joshua had never been very good at them. His passion was for magic. But it was the thought that counted.

But when he’d grown up, Joshua had become tougher. Sick of physically fighting Andrew and being sent to the pit, Joshua had let his anger out by being passive aggressive to his brother and sister. He sometimes even hit them. If Faith didn’t fight back, Andrew would call her weak.

If Joshua lost to Faith, Andrew would call him pathetic for letting a girl beat him, so there was no win either way. Andrew didn’t really seem to care when Joshua fought Gary. After all, Gary was the Soldier.

Joshua sat down, crossing his legs, taking a swig from a canteen. He shouldn’t get worried. He was nearly eighteen years old; he could handle himself. If Faith had any sense, she’d do it as well. Keep her feelings inside.

But Joshua had never been told that this was what was killing him. What made him squeeze his pillow tight after lights out.

Some way away, Fred asked as they walked up the path, “Is there anything you’re interested in besides time travel?”

Faith stared off into the ocean. “I like to draw.”

“Drawing,” Fred repeated, “That’s a start.”

Faith sat down at the top, where the path met the cliff. She looked out over the stars across the ocean. “Did you know that archaeologists originally believed that the sea levels had been lower, because the Maori travelled so far? They were wrong. The Maori were just exceptional sailors.”

Fred wondered what this girl she was occupying would die from. He didn’t really listen to Faith as she described how beautiful the scene was and how she wished she could draw this. He was only thinking of how this girl – this rather pretty Maori girl – would die soon.

Why did Andrew kill the bodies?

Unless…he knew they would die. And placed his children inside to take advantage of the victims' last days.

When he had tried to ask Faith, she shook her head and told him that he wouldn’t know yet.

"Promise me something?" she asked, turning her head to look at him.

"What?" Fred replied.

"That you'll try to find where we're hiding. My brothers, Andrew and I. Because we're on our last few missions and I don't know what Andrew will do to us after that. I mean, I'm sure he loves us -"

"Loves you?" Fred exclaimed, disgusted, "From what you've told us, he locked you in a room filled with spikes for a whole day, several times. He's hit you, slapped you, forced you to go on unbelievably dangerous missions, whipped you with a belt since the age of three -"

"But I don't want to upset him," Faith pulled her knees to her chest, nervously placing some of her hair behind her ear, "I'm concerned about his feelings."

Fred was about to say that Andrew's _feelings_ had probably gone a long time ago before he remembered that some hostages might warm to their captors. It was why abused children sometimes didn't leave their parents or caregivers. Why they always defended them and never spoke ill of them, even when they had long since moved away.

So he didn't say anything. Instead, the two of them held hands as they looked out over an endless ocean with the stars twinkling above.

 

**December 1925**  
**New York**

This time, Faith was back in Emese, stealing a copy of the lost D.W Griffith movie _That Royle Girl_. Maybe when it was found and remastered, she suggested, she and Fred could watch it.

"I don't really watch movies," she had told him when the two of them were in 1920s comedian and actor W.C Fields' house, where Joe and Samantha were upstairs, having pretended to be working on hauling in furniture. Samantha, as she always did when pretending to be a boy, wore her baseball cap. They thought that they'd ended up in the Roaring Twenties by accident. Fred didn't want to say he had entered the date to see Faith.

Fred looked over at Faith, deep in thought as she sat on a couch, engrossed in what seemed to be a first edition of _Gentlemen Prefer Blondes_. Then he pushed himself up from the steps and asked, “Faith, what do you know about music?”

She blinked at him a couple of times, replying, “It is used for recreational use, ceremonial use or even as thanks to deities. Music is possibly the earliest form of communication. It is often used for joyous occasions –“

“Okay, okay!” Fred put his hands up, pushing the air away in front of him, “No need to lecture me! I meant, what type of music do you enjoy?”

She held her hands together down in front of her as she tried to think of a suitable answer. “I enjoyed listening to the monks chanting in La Rochelle. That was in France, the year 1307. And when I was in Covent Garden in 1810, Gary and I were working at the opera house across from our destination. I didn’t understand a word the actors were saying, but I found it magical. Oh and there was panpipe music in Crete.”

It was clear to Fred that Faith hadn’t a clue as to what modern music sounded like. If he suddenly started playing a track on his iPod at home, she might say that it sounded like broken trashcan lids being torn apart.

He looked over at the record player on the stand nearby. Surely Fields wouldn’t mind if the two of them danced?

When Fred placed a record on, he saw Faith standing in the doorway, staring. She obviously knew what a record player was. But she had never danced to music playing from one before.

She didn’t know how to dance.

Fred held his hand out, gently taking hers. He carefully pulled her close and placed his other hand on her shoulder. He could see that she was ready to attack, but was desperately fighting her reflexes.

“It’s all right,” he laughed, “If you don’t want to do it…”

“No, no, I’ll try.” She shook her head.

He tried to help her. She kept stepping on his feet and turning at the wrong times. He then fell backwards onto the couch, pulling her along with him. But then she started laughing and he found himself laughing with her.

He hadn’t felt like this in a long time.

Fred never thought he would dance with a girl, even one with two left feet. But he had.

And as he looked into her deep, green eyes, he wondered if perhaps he could try to teach her, if they had the time.

Soon they realised they were not alone. "And what exactly is going on?" Griffith asked as he stood in the doorway, with Joe and Samantha standing on either side. The two of them were blushing, thinking they had caught Fred and Faith at a private time.

Fred shot up and dusted himself off. "Oh, nothing Mr Griffith." Then he stopped the gramophone.

"I think they were dancing," Joe looked up at Griffith out of the corner of his eye, "and I also think they're in love." He crossed his arms and smirked.

It was Fred and Faith's turn to blush.

Griffith's scowl faded. "Well, I suppose love makes us do stupid things. But not while your friends are delivering the furniture, please!"

 

**19th April 2013**  
**Brooklyn**

Back in the present, Sam was leafing through the documents in seperate tabs on the computer, that had been recovered from what Isabel had shown him. It had taken ages for him to get around it, with his last few weeks at school before he would go to college, but he had found the time, so to speak.

He wasn’t really sure what a wood in Michigan, a national park in Utah and a terraced house in Boston had in common with each other, but he had chosen to look up the addresses on the internet. He couldn’t seem to uncover much, so he decided to widen his search.

He remembered that the green-eyed children had been born in 1977, so he added that year to the Michigan wood. When he did, he was so shocked that he nearly fell from his chair.

Sam reread the details on the screen, just to check if he was looking at the right place. No, this was definitely the wood that Isabel had showed him. His fingers shook as he looked at the park in Utah. A similar incident, with the same conclusion.

Nervously, he typed in Isabel’s name as well as the address in Boston. The first picture that came up on the search engine made him shake his head slowly, murmuring, “No, no, it can’t be.”

But it certainly was.

Less than an hour later, Samantha was sitting cross-legged on Sam’s bed as the printer whirred into life.

“Sam, could you calm down and explain to me what you’ve found, instead of pacing?” she asked, annoyed that he had called her up and all he did was panic.

He grabbed the papers from the printer and sat down next to her. “Andrew…” he whispered to himself, “he’s – I knew he was bad, obviously – he taught Mad Jack – but I never…”

Samantha slapped him in the face. Sam looked ahead, blinked and then answered with, “Thank you.”

He drew up and showed Samantha the first piece of paper. “Look at it,” he pointed at the photo, “that woman, she was found dead outside Midland in Michigan in September 1977.”

Samantha peered. It showed a black-and-white picture of a cheery-looking woman in her thirties, her black hair done up in a bun and wearing a Chinese dress. “And?” Samantha looked up.

“That name,” Sam replied, “She was named Wei August. That’s what Gary’s called. And she was pregnant when she disappeared.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Samantha started to point out, but then Sam handed her another sheet of paper. This one had a colour picture, taken of a nursery. The caption underneath read, _‘Wei was nine months pregnant with her son when she disappeared. Eddie said that they planned to name him Garry.’_

Samantha gulped. Then she shook her head and argued, “You do know that it doesn’t mean much? And we don’t even know if Gary’s Chinese.”

“But look at these,” Sam told her, “Two more pregnant women disappeared in late September 1977. Ruth White in Utah and Isabel Wilson in Boston. And Isabel’s picture is identical to the angel that we saw.”

Samantha had to admit that there were similarities. She held the news article in her hands as she skim-read the contents.

“ _Wei, 42, was pregnant with her fourth child – and her first born on American soil – when she dropped her children, then aged 5, 10 and 14, off at school on 20th September 1977. She was last seen at 9.15am as she talked to an unknown man outside of her eldest son’s school. He was described as a clean-shaven white man in his mid-thirties. They left together in Wei’s brown Ford Focus_ …” she held her finger on the page as she moved further down, “ _Wei’s body was found in woodland off East Pine River Road eight days later. But what horrified investigators the most was that_ ,” Samantha’s voice rose in disgust as she read out loud, “ _her baby had been cut from her womb and she possibly died from complications.’_ Oh my –“ she shrieked, disgusted.

She looked back at her great-grandfather. “Do you really think that Andrew could –“ Then she remembered what Mad Jack had said to Uncle Joe, after he had questioned about the children.

“You really don’t want to hear about the kids’ births.” Sam repeated for her.

Samantha held a hand to her mouth in horror. “The other two?” she could barely muster the words.

Sam read the next one so that she wouldn’t have to.

“ _Ruth White, 27, was at home in Provo, Utah with her three-year-old son Zachariah James when neighbours heard a commotion, followed by Ruth screaming, sometime after noon on 21st September 1977. The next-door neighbour found James banging on her front door to say that ‘a bad man took Mommy._ ”

“Oh that poor little boy!” Samantha gasped. She didn’t want to, but she took a peek anyway at the witness sketch. Frankly, it looked nothing like Andrew, but the witness had been a toddler.

“Ruth was eight months gone,” Sam explained, “and she was found six months later in the…Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, inside a 1920s refrigerator. There was evidence that she had given birth naturally, but had died of complications.”

“And her baby?” Samantha asked.

Sam looked at the article. “It says that she was having a boy and she wanted to call him Joshua.”

Samantha thought _That figures._ She glanced over at the child’s statement and said that the man had been in the house for ‘some time’ and that he was certain his mommy had met him before. The suspect had introduced himself to the boy as Andy. 

Then she looked at the third article. This one featured ‘the angel’. But here she was happy and smiling, sitting at a table. She was still wearing pink, however.

“ _Isabel Wilson_ ,” Samantha read, “ _was eight and a half months pregnant when she vanished from her house in Boston on 22nd September 1977. Isabel, 36, was last seen by an acquaintance as she opened the door for a white man in his thirties. Isabel ‘seemed happy to see him’, implying that the two of them knew each other._ ”

Isabel was never found. The memorial was for an empty grave.

Then Samantha looked through the papers.

“Why exactly would Andrew take these women? Why not any other pregnant woman?”

“Well,” Sam cleaned his glasses on his t-shirt as he read, “Wei’s husband was from a family of soldiers. It also says from articles years later that her older two children had already taken up several different sports in school. Andrew had aimed for good genes. He didn’t want children who may let him down.”

Sam showed her one on Ruth. “Her family seem a bit tricky, but it says that her little boy could ‘talk to angels’, something her other siblings did. Her husband’s side includes a medium and her aunt is a tarot reader. They said that they knew she was gone from the start. They also said, strangely enough, trying to find the baby is difficult since ‘the lifeline is murky’. I think we should ask Uncle Joe.”

That had the magician part sorted. Samantha looked at Isabel’s family. Her grandfather was an archaeologist and had even worked on Tutankhamen’s tomb. Her father had been a history teacher in college and her brother had worked at Civil War events. Her husband’s side had ‘incredible memory’. The reason Isabel and her husband lived in Boston was so he could work at a re-enactment show.

“Andrew wanted to create children who would fit his qualities,” Sam held his fingers by his temple, concentrating hard, “I believe that he looked for the perfect people. Maybe he looked up every antenatal clinic in the world. Or caused the parents to meet. He can time-travel, after all.”

But then he shot up, paper flying everywhere.

“Where’s Fred?” he asked.

Samantha shrugged. "Maybe at home. I definitely saw them go back."

“He needs to see this,” Sam frowned, “Uncle Joe and Daisy have to see this.”


	9. Chapter 9

**19th April 2013**  
**Brooklyn**

Fred sat very still on his bed as Sam and Samantha showed him what they had found.

“You mean to say,” he had a lump in his throat as he asked them, “that Andrew isn’t their real dad? That he took them?”

Samantha nodded. “That’s the gist of it. From what the angel told Sam, at any rate. And Mad Jack did say that we wouldn’t want to know how the green-eyed children were born –“

Fred wasn’t listening. All he could think about was how he seemed to despise Andrew even more now. He knew that he shouldn’t really hate someone that he’d never met, but he couldn’t help but feel this way.

This man had abducted the children’s mothers. He had abused them, manipulated them, made them go on dangerous missions for him.

“Why?” he asked, crumpling the paper in his fists as he spoke, “Why take them?”

Sam could only think of one answer. “Because he knew the Time Agents might be looking for him. He needed accomplices that would be undetectable.”

“Accomplices that wouldn’t double-cross him.” Samantha chimed in.

Fred looked back at the dates. Thirty-six years ago. Faith, Joshua and Gary’s real fathers could now be dead. Their real brothers and sisters would be grown up. Of course, when they had the Book, they could just as easily go back to 1995 and hand them over –

Sam seemed to guess what his friend was thinking, since he interrupted Fred’s train of thought. “I don’t know, Fred,” he got up from his chair and sat next to his friend, putting an arm around his shoulders, “It depends what Uncle Joe and Daisy think.”

“Well, stuff them!” Fred scowled as he stood up, papers flying, “They don’t even know I’m meeting Faith when I go back! Heck, she told me to next meet her in the fifth century BC when they’re building the Parthenon. I can’t exactly go up and say, ‘Hey beautiful girl I have a crush on, did you know that your dad actually kidnapped your moms and murdered them? Oh and that’s ‘moms’ because you’re not real siblings.’ And besides, if the Time Agency are unsure what type of magic Andrew is using to send them back, who knows how powerful he is?”

Sam and Samantha glanced at each other. Samantha broke the silence by saying, “It doesn’t matter if Faith and the boys have different parents. They grew up together and they think of each other as siblings.”

“That’s true,” Sam nodded, “If you and Mike weren’t real brothers, Fred, you’d still love each other.”

Fred snorted. “But I promised Faith that we’d rescue them on their final mission.”

“Where is their final mission?” Samantha asked him.

Fred took the piece of paper out from under his mattress and unfolded it. “When Faith was in Mei, she said that she would go to the Valley of the Kings, medieval Iceland, medieval Italy and Washington D.C. The last meeting place on here is Washington, in May 1973.”

“Anything significant happen them?” Samantha asked her great-grandfather.

Sam raised an eyebrow in mild disbelief. “Samantha, did you actually read the book on the twentieth century that I sent you?” When she shook her head, Sam groaned and stood up. “The Watergate tapes. The trial was about to start in May 1973. I’d wager that the three are going to steal the missing fifteen minutes of the tape.”

“But I need to see her in Greece first,” Fred begged, “I promised.”

Sam pushed his glasses up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “OK. But please be careful. And I hate to say it, but we might need Uncle Joe with us. I won’t tell him everything. It’s for our safety. In case the boys or Andrew might end up doing something.”

Fred nodded, nervously.

He hoped this would work.

 

**438 BC  
Athens**

Joe, Sam, Fred and Uncle Joe landed on a cart of hay outside the construction site.

“Pretty soft landing, if I do say so myself.” Uncle Joe stood up and dusted himself off as the three boys climbed out. Sam pulled hay from his hair.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to see the Parthenon being built,” Uncle Joe smiled as he clicked his pen and their shoes turned into sandals, to better stand the weather, “Thanks for bringing me along, boys.”

“Oh, my pleasure,” Joe swung from side to side, hands closed behind his back, before he turned to Fred and gritted his teeth, “This better work, Fred!”

As they walked closer to the site, the three boys looked around to see if they could spot a girl anyway about. They had no idea what Faith looked like in this body, so they had a slightly tough time.

The workers started to disperse as they went for lunch. In the crowd of sweaty, tired men, Fred saw someone waving.

A very thin, small boy in a straw hat came up, grinning. “Hi!” he squealed, before hugging Fred. A little taken aback, Fred looked down at the boy.

“It’s Faith,” she whispered, “Since women can’t be construction workers, I had to pretend to be a young orphan boy. Well, we’ve taken over the bodies of orphans in this life anyway, but the only way that they can wander anywhere is if the female dresses as a boy. She even cut her hair off, see?”

She lifted the straw hat to show them very short hair. It seemed the same colour and texture as her hat. Then she looked about herself.

“Joshua and Gary are already on their break. To tell you the truth, this is tough work. Hauling massive white stones all over the place. I’d had enough when we were on the Great Pyramid.”

Fred paused for a second as Faith took his hand and started to pull him away. “How many of your hosts have been cross-dressers?” he found himself asking.

Faith shrugged. “When they need to survive. You’ve already seen Elizabeth Haywood and Pearl Cartwright. There’s also when one of them worked on the Iron Pillar of Delhi, another when we stole the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi sword in Japan, a third during the Siege of Constantinople in AD 1204…” she trailed off as they stopped inside the temple itself, “ _Flor de la Mar_ , lost library of Ivan the Terrible,” she counted off on her fingers, “Captain Kidd’s treasure, the Kurukshetra War, King Solomon’s mines…”

Fred had started looking about the huge room, slightly bored. Good grief, he found Faith interesting but some days it was like dating Sam. He glanced over at two young men standing behind a massive statue. They were hiding parchment inside a clay pot. Guessing that these were Joshua and Gary, Fred hid behind a pillar as he watched Joshua casting a spell.

“Dead Sea scrolls,” Faith hadn’t seemed to notice Fred had walked away, “Library of Alexandria texts, _Nuestra Senora de Atocha_ , _Maesta_ altarpiece and the _HMS Erebus_. Fred?” She looked up and saw that Fred was behind the pillar, pointing at her brothers casting the spell.

“You know, the Parthenon was quite beautiful back in its day,” Faith told him as she walked up, swaying from side to side as she did so, “Pity that the Ottomans didn’t really care much for heritage sites. They also tried to take apart the Great Pyramid. That’s why there’s a huge dent in one side…”

“Faith,” Fred shushed her, “could you be quiet for one second?”

Unbeknownst to everyone in the temple, Uncle Joe had already come in.

“Hey!” he shouted, seeing Joshua and Gary. Joshua was too engrossed in the spell to care, but Gary had stood up and was running at Uncle Joe with a spear. Uncle Joe clicked his pen and levitated in the air as Gary accidentally crashed the spear into a pillar.

Turning around, the boy frowned as he saw the green pen. “Time Agent, huh?” he scoffed.

“Yes, young man!” Uncle Joe snapped, now hovering higher just in case Gary could hit him with another spear at fifty paces, which he could, by the way, “Andrew’s children, am I right?” Joshua finished up the spell and looked up, also glaring. “You’re not getting away.”

Joshua held his head to one side, examining Uncle Joe with an eerie calmness. “You remind me of someone,” he said, trying to work it out.

Uncle Joe nodded. “My brother is Mad Jack. He worked with your father, young man, and I dare say you remember him from your childhood.”

“Mr Jack?” Gary asked, crouching down and picking up a knife before standing up again, his eyes not leaving the man once.

Uncle Joe crossed his arms as he floated some way off. “Yes, indeed. I also –“ he stopped when he saw Fred down on the ground.

“Fred?” his voice grew angry, “Why are you _holding her hand_?”

Fred and Faith immediately drew away as Uncle Joe floated down beside them. “This is Andrew’s daughter!” he snapped, “Don’t you realize she could give away what you’ve told her? She’s dangerous, Fred!”

“She’s not!” Fred snapped back, stepping in front of Faith to shield her, “I love her!”

Faith held back a smile. She knew this wasn’t the time.

“She could be _using_ that love!” When Uncle Joe was furious he looked uncannily like his brother. “And Andrew – Andrew hurt me as well. He didn’t turn Jack against me, but he taught my brother most of what he knows.”

“Dad is a powerful wizard,” Faith shakily raised her voice, “He’s nothing but kind to us.”

Joshua called from across the room, “He said that people would use us otherwise. Because we were born outside of time.”

Fred was about to say that Andrew wasn’t their dad when Uncle Joe grabbed his arm and pressed his pen. The two of them disappeared in green mist as Faith, Joshua and Gary stood staring at the space where they had been.

Faith chewed her nail, close to tears.

“Faith?” Gary came up, confused, “Why did you say you love him?”

“Because she’s fallen for him, dummy,” Joshua growled, storming up to his sister and grabbing her wrist, “Ever since 1483.” As he looked deep into her terrified eyes, Joshua told her, menacingly, “While I won’t tell Dad about this, if only because he might hurt all of us in his temper, I _forbid_ you to see him again! Mark my words, sis, I will keep my eye on you.”

As the three of them began to descend back to their own bodies, Faith felt as if her stomach was in knots.

When they got home, she didn’t go in the shower with her brothers. Instead, she ran out and to her room, where she crashed onto the bed and cried into her pillow.

 

**20th April 2013**  
**Brooklyn**

Uncle Joe landed in his nephew’s bedroom, the three boys all around him.

“Hey!” Sam cried, annoyed, “What was that for?” When he saw that Joe’s uncle looked furious, he swallowed and didn’t say anything.

“Were you aware, nephew,” Uncle Joe asked Joe, coldly, “that Fred was in a relationship with Andrew’s daughter?”

Joe rubbed the back of his neck. “I – not at first.”

Uncle Joe let out a series of exclamations. “How dare you!” he eventually shrieked, “You could have put everything in jeopardy! Daisy and I have been working day and night to try and find out what Andrew was doing and Fred’s been off kissing Faith?”

“We haven’t kissed yet,” Fred answered softly, too afraid to speak any louder.

“I don’t care!” Uncle Joe grabbed the Book from the desk drawer, “I’m taking this back to the Time Agency. I’m also going to take Jodie’s. Until you children think about what you’ve done.”

Before he could disappear in a cloud of smoke, Sam pointed out, “But we have found some information. Faith gave us the birthdates and deathdates of those she possessed. They never overlap. I – I hope this helps you.” He looked down at the floor and then sat on Joe’s bed.

Uncle Joe took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, sighing. Then he looked at each of the boys in turn. “Boys, I care about you. Joe especially. I almost lost him when Mad Jack kidnapped him. And I had to live through Phoebe. I – Andrew’s taken from me before, boys.”

He sighed and explained what had happened just after Hedgewing’s death, when Mad Jack gave Andrew information regarding Julia.

Joe swallowed as he imagined his mother, just a child, locked away in a cage and terrified out of her mind. No wonder she never questioned when the boys would come back with strange items or suddenly seem interested in the Boer War. It also explained the scar his mother had between her fingers and why she clammed up whenever he or Anna asked about it. On top of that, his mother would have seen her future. Who she would marry. True, unlike Joe and Phoebe, it definitely appeared that Julia and John loved each other, but to see all that, to know you had no other way…

Was this how Jodie had felt when she learnt about Phoebe?

“Come on,” Uncle Joe hugged his nephew close, “I need to give this over to Daisy. But I mean it; no warping until I tell you. I won’t take Jodie’s book, only make sure she can’t warp with it. So they can still talk to you. I won’t be too long. I’m sure you’ll have this back when summer starts in two weeks.”

After Uncle Joe disappeared, Joe looked over at Fred. “Fred,” he started to tell him, “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m fine.” Fred mumbled, although he wasn’t.

 

**20th April 2013**  
**Time Agency**

Uncle Joe looked at the giant globe with places marked all over.

He had just come back from Andrew’s hideout, still in the Bermuda Triangle. It had been difficult to make sure that no-one saw him. In addition, the hideout was bigger than he had thought.

Aside from the children’s bedrooms, Andrew’s bedroom and the gym, there was a fake garden, two bathrooms (one of which was just three shower cubicles), a stage with only one comfy chair (presumably where Andrew tested them on their acting abilities), a swimming pool, a library filled with all different types of historical books, a potions laboratory, three kitchens, a dining room, a breakfast room, a Victorian-style parlour, a scullery and three different schoolrooms (each with their own set of books on magic, history or sports).

There was also a set of doors labelled ‘Jungle Room’, ‘Desert and Savannah Room’, ‘Market and Town Room’, ‘Castle and Palace Room’, ‘Island Room’, ‘Ship and Shipyard Room’, ‘Forest Room’, ‘Mountain Room’, ‘Farm and Country Room’, ‘Library Room’ and ‘Manor House Room’, each with their own settings on the door, to alter the time and place to go to. For instance, the ‘Farm and Country Room’ might show a farm from northern Europe one day and a farm in Ancient Egypt the next.

Uncle Joe had to admit that it was impressive.

Next to these doors sat the disguise room, with all sorts of costumes inside. There was also a tailor’s inside, with lots of mannequins of varying heights. The next room held bunches of weapons, most of which were behind glass doors. This room looked like a museum, although the actual museum was next door. Half-finished knives were inside a drawer with Joshua’s name scrawled on a label.

Another room looked a bit like the inside of a cathedral. Several homemade candles and soaps were scattered about. This was obviously a room for conducting magic. It was too similar to the Time Agency’s meditation rooms for anything else.

A stables and training ground with mechanical horses was in another fake outdoors. The horses looked dead-eyed and lifeless and Uncle Joe hoped that these were only fake. A hospital room was next door, with three hospital beds. A giant larder held all sorts of food. A very sinister door had a bolt across it and was rusting. This had to be the pit.

If Uncle Joe had hazard a guess, he would have said the rooms that the children were not allowed in were Andrew’s room, one of the bathrooms (which would have been Andrew’s), one of the kitchens (also Andrew’s), the pit and the larder.

There was also the most mysterious of the rooms.

Inside, it looked like something out of a nature documentary. A circular pool cut into stone, with large boulders around it. The ceiling was several feet high, with the ground covered in fake grass. However, real plants were dotted about the room. The water was a very strange shade of greyish-white, with small wisps of steam floating around. The faint lighting around the edge of the pool that reached to the ceiling gave the impression that Uncle Joe was looking inside a waterfall.

Several markings were carved all around the pool, with several timekeeping implements hanging about the ceiling. But the implements were faint, as if they weren’t really here. If Uncle Joe could peer closer at the pool, he could see the Milky Way dotted at the bottom.

Hundreds of tiny green lines darted around if he placed his finger above the pool, all moving into place, waiting for someone to lie down inside. The lines started to surround his finger. Squinting, Uncle Joe could work out that some resembled blood veins and some looked like drawings of chakras from ancient religions. The stars below started to change about and Uncle Joe suspected they were moving into the position they had been in the sky when he had been born.

This was really dark magic.

This sort of magic controlled lifelines.

When he had left the room, he decided to look inside the children’s bedrooms. He felt slightly bad for going into a young girl’s room, but she wasn’t there. Instead, he looked at an index card on the desk, next to a wooden box. Opening up the box, he took out the first index card.

Pompeii, the piece of paper read. The name next to it read _Julia Centho, October 28th 69 – October 30th 79. Mission Date: October 28th – October 30th_.

Uncle Joe placed it down and then looked at the next record card.

_Jerusalem, Miriam bat Fivel, 8th October 58 – 10th November 68. Mission Date: 8th November 68 – 9th November 68_.

A chill ran down Uncle Joe’s spine as he saw both Miriam’s death date and Julia’s birth date. They were only eleven months apart.

Pulling out a large clump of record cards, he picked up the next one he saw in the box.

_Inca Gold, Quilla, 29th May 1521 – 31st August 1533. Mission Date: 29th August 1533 – 30th August 1533_.

Remembering that Faith had met Fred on her twelfth birthday, Uncle Joe pulled out the third to last card from the pile he had tugged out. When he read the name, his fears were confirmed.

_Princes in the Tower & Richard III’s Remains, Meg Page, 30th June 1471 – 30th August 1485. Mission Dates: 30th June 1483 – 1st July 1483 (Tower of London) & 21st August 1485 – 30th August 1485 (Bosworth Field)_.

Suddenly Uncle knew how Faith could be Meg. How she could be Elizabeth and Gemma and Ling and Ingrid and all of the other girls whose bodies she had taken over.

It wasn’t a case of possession by time-travel, not in the logical sense.

These were Faith’s previous lives. She and Joshua and Gary had numerous past lives implanted throughout history, using mental time travel to inhabit their bodies. Each time a mission had been completed, Faith would go back to her home outside of time, as the previous life, no longer of any use to Andrew, would die.

It was both amazing and horrific.

Uncle Joe’s eyes welled up with tears as he realized exactly how many families Andrew had ruined. Elizabeth and John Haywood definitely had had parents who looked after them in St. Louis. The Emperor had doted on Ling. Gemma’s grandmother had to watch as the girl she had thought was her grandchild had gone onto a ship for seemingly no reason, only to drown in a storm.

Uncle Joe flicked through some more cards, to see if he recognized any of the other dates.

He recognized the name of the Ark of the Covenant. Faith had supposedly been a girl named Devorah bat Meshulam, had successfully hidden the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem in December 587 BC (or rather, Uncle Joe thought to himself, the month I would call December), aged fifteen years and three months.

In another case, Uncle Joe found King John’s Crown Jewels. In that life, Faith had been a girl named Emily Shepherd and had been aged eleven years, two months. That must have been the earliest any of them had seen her, Uncle Joe realized.

Uncle Joe was admittedly impressed when he read another card that said that Faith had been on the _HMS Erebus_. A lost expedition from 1847, not only would Faith (or Sarah Chaplin, as the card said her name was) have had to dress as a boy to even get on board the ship, but she and her brothers would have been very young; it said that the ship was lost just before their seventeenth birthdays and the _HMS Erebus_ had set off from England almost three years earlier.

Uncle Joe examined the last card in the pile. It was another double mission, it appeared.

_Carvaggio painting & Watergate Tapes, Rosa Sciacca, 18th November 1954 – 20th May 1973. Mission Dates: 18th October 1969 (Sicily) &_

Uncle Joe couldn’t believe it.

Andrew had been experimenting with magic he found at the Time Agency. The darkest magic that he could find concerning people. He manipulated the children’s lifelines, possibly while their mothers were in labour, so they would be alive and the right age at the perfect times to carry out the missions. Then he used the magic to cut the previous lives short, arrange accidents.

This wasn’t just playing with fire. It was playing _God_.

And the only way Andrew could have done so was to use children born outside of time, where their previous lives could be formed by him in the exact places he wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of using reincarnation to travel back in time and steal historical artifacts and knowledge comes from a book named _The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare_. It's not a well-known book, as I appear to be fond of stories that are not well-known (I'm writing this fanfiction, aren't I?). I hope you enjoyed it all the same and I will put up another chapter in possibly a week, maybe as late as ten days.


	10. Chapter 10

**23rd April 2013**   
**Brooklyn**

Fred lay on his back in his room. It just wasn’t fair! He wanted to help Faith get away from her dad and Uncle Joe had taken the Book.

He had moped over the last few days, not even paying attention when he had his final week at school, where everyone would be taking part in activities. Normally Fred would have reveled in this chaos, but now he was like Sam; staying out of the way, nose in a book. Joe tried talking to him, but didn’t get anywhere.

Fred had picked up a book on the Valley of the Kings, wondering where exactly Faith had gone. He looked at a drawing with explanations as to what building the tombs may have looked like. Had Faith been a part of the construction crew, disguised as a boy? Or had she perhaps been a servant to a pharaoh, coming along to the site to wave his giant fans? Or even a laundrywoman or a farmer?

He doubted he would know. Even with Uncle Joe and Daisy working hard at trying to rescue the three, he didn’t think they would let him see Faith.

But what if…what if Faith really was the mother of his children? Would they let him see her then?

It was all too confusing. He shut the book and gripped his curls in his hands, growling through his teeth.

 

**1322 BC**   
**Egypt**

Meanwhile – in a sense – Faith fanned the overseer at the site. This life was going to die of a snakebite, which made Faith a little nervous when she had seen the court magicians’ pet cobra, but she was thankfully away from that.

Joshua was inside the tomb itself, casting the spell. Normally Gary would have been with him, but instead he was beside Faith, in the body of a craftsman.

“I guessed that you must have sent a message in China,” he folded his arms and leaned to his side to whisper in her ear, “You went ahead on the other horse.”

“Gary,” she sighed deeply, “in a few months, Dad’s going to take all the money he’s invested so far out of his bank accounts and use them to fund more expeditions. He’ll probably end up being the richest man on Earth.”

“And?” Gary asked, unaware, “We’ll be happily off.”

“But what if his future doesn’t include us?” Faith shared her worry, “He hasn’t said a word once about what he’ll do to us. Best case scenario, he lets us live out the rest of our lives at home. Worst…”

“Dad loves us,” Gary interrupted, but his voice wobbled all the same, “He wouldn’t do that to us.”

“You don’t think so, do you?” Faith turned to him, still fanning the overseer, who was rapidly talking to the craftsman.

Gary didn’t answer. Instead he looked down at the sand.

He wasn’t sure.

 

**24th April 2013**   
**Brooklyn**

As well as Fred graduating from school, it was Mike’s last year at college. He was going on to play football professionally. Fred’s parents kept telling him how this was brilliant, but Fred didn’t even pay attention when his parents kept taking photos of their elder son.

Fred had written all of the names he knew Faith had used, on the back of the paper she had given him. They shone back at him in blue ink, mocking him, taunting him.

_Meg – Elizabeth – Gemma – Ingrid – Ling – Lisel – Emese – Rosa – Liliane – Pearl_

She’d had many more, he knew that.

It had been so long since he had seen the real Faith. He just hoped that he would get to know the real her.

 

**AD 1350**   
**Iceland**

Faith sat on the grassy mountainside as Joshua stood next to her, acting as bodyguard.

“Joshua, you don’t have to do this.” She groaned.

He didn’t look at her. All he said was, “I have to be vigilant, Faith. I’m afraid I can’t trust you.”

“I don’t want to fight you,” she looked up at him, desperately, “Please, listen to me –“

“You’re lucky,” Joshua sneered, “that I haven’t told Dad. I don’t want to see you get hurt. I love you. Dad does, too.”

Faith scoffed. “Dad cares about himself.”

“Don’t you say that!” Joshua frowned at her. “Dad has looked after us our entire lives. He said that –“

“That if we lived anywhere else, people would misuse our powers,” Faith stood up, ready to hit him if things came to it, “But don’t you ever think about what Dad’s done to us? He’s locked us in a dark pit with spikes! He’s hit us, whipped us! In fact, I’d wager that the only reason you’re so cold now is because you copied him! He’s made you into a monster, Joshua.”

Joshua slapped his sister across the face. She fell backwards onto the long grass and looked up at him, worried.

But Joshua didn’t tell her about when he had been young, when Mr Jack had been there. He had brought a screaming, terrified girl into the pit. Joshua had been in his schoolroom when that happened, reading about defence magic. He had peeked around the door to make sure that Daddy hadn’t seen him.

And when Joshua had gone downstairs to see the girl, she had been crying. Daddy and Mr Jack never told him who the girl was. But Joshua guessed that she must be Mr Jack’s sister.

Mr Jack and his brother and sister. Did they love each other as well?

Joshua doubted it. Mr Jack’s brother had seemed devoted to the Time Agency, from what Joshua had heard him say to Fred. And Joshua had once briefly seen Mr Jack’s sister, but she had been crying and shouted at him.

Joshua didn’t want to act cold towards his brother and sister. But the reason he had been so horrible when he got older was because he wanted to learn to survive. Not just survive on the missions, but survive Dad.

The young man turned away and watched Gary walk up the mountainside, the parchment of _Gauker’s Saga_ under his tunic. He would have to talk to Faith later.

The problem with bottling up emotions and being too scared to talk back to the person supposed to care for you is a complete nightmare.

And Joshua saw no way out.

 

**25th April 2113**   
**Brooklyn**

Jodie shut her Book after she had asked if they could have gone to the prom, like they had done six years ago.

Joe had laughed awkwardly and said that this was probably a bad idea. Sam was taking Vanessa. He hadn’t planned on going at all, since this wasn’t really his thing, but Vanessa sweet-talked him into it. Anyway, Joe said to his great-granddaughter, it might cheer Fred up.

“Okay,” Jodie waved goodbye, “See you soon!”

She turned back to Samantha and Freddi, sitting on her bed. “Do you think the green dress would suit me?” she giggled, holding it up, while showing a hologram of herself wearing it.

“Jodie,” Freddi spoke up, “I – I think we need to talk to Uncle Joe about Faith.”

“Why?” Jodie asked, raising an eyebrow, “What’s the problem?”

Freddi looked down at the ground. “Well – they –“ she wringed her hands, “We have to rescue Faith.”

Samantha was about to ask why when her eyes widened and she nodded, pulling her friend close. Jodie, on the other hand, was stumped.

“Why? She’s the agent who taught the man who almost killed me everything he knows! Faith might be as horrible as Andrew.”

“She’s not!” Freddi glared up at her lifelong friend, “She’s not, trust me!”

“And why are you so sure?” Jodie crossed her arms.

“Jodie,” Samantha acted as the voice of reason, “can’t you work it out?”

“I didn’t want to tell you,” Freddi stood up, no longer glaring, but pleading, “since you’re never going to have a relationship with yours.”

“Mine? What on Earth are you talking about, Freddi?” Jodie raised her eyebrow.

Freddi took a deep breath. “With your great-grandmother.”

There was a silence as Jodie processed what she had heard. “You mean –“ she started to ask, “her and Fred?”

Freddi nodded. “They’re going to spend –“ she swallowed, “over seventy-five years together in holy matrimony.”

Jodie then paused. This girl was going to end up being part of their lives? Part of all of their lives? Did that mean that she’d leave Andrew? Leave what she knew behind?

It was a little foolish, personally, Jodie decided, but if it meant that they’d save Faith, it was something.

 

**AD 1418**   
**Northern Italy**

The three children worked in the workshop where the code for the Voynich Manuscript was being written. At present, they were apprentices for a printer (who hadn’t noticed Faith’s host was actually female, mainly due to this host’s small figure and large tunic) and were swiftly completing the patterns onto parchment.

Faith sat next to her brothers, neatly copying down details with concentration. But she still couldn’t help but wonder if Fred was coming to save her.

Did he even love her anymore?

Was it actual love, or was it just a strange fascination with the first person her own body had met who wasn’t either related to her or an absolute horror?

The first boy she had been honest to.

Was it really such a bad thing if she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him? Or did she only want to escape Dad?

Was Joshua right and Dad really loved them? He had been kind to them, despite everything he had done.

Dad had kissed their scrapes and bruises better. He had shown them how to cook and read to them as well as taught them magic and fighting. He had feed and bathed and cared for them.

So had the angel.

Faith now asked herself, placing the quill back into the bottle so that it wouldn’t stain the paper, something that she sometimes did think about.

Was the angel her Mom?

Faith had seen the angel in her mind’s eye sometimes. She had heard the angel say that she was all right, that she was safe. Whether she had been in her bedroom or on a mission, Faith had seen and dreamt of the woman in pink, who large wings held her close and stroked her.

The angel who had told her that she would be free, but not just yet.

Patience, she had told Faith, without their lips moving. Love and faith transcend time and space.

 

**26th April 2013**   
**Time Agency**

Uncle Joe walked into the indoor pool as it glowed a light green. Daisy held her bracelet high and he his pen.

“Andrew’s still powerful,” Uncle Joe said to her, “We have to make sure we don’t see him.”

“How do you know he’s been using magic?” Daisy asked Uncle Joe, “Mad Jack said that Andrew didn’t use any when he was around. And Jack went there quite a lot as a kid.”

“You don’t need to come,” Uncle Joe said as the green mist swirled around them on top of the water, “The Time Agency has to be guarded.” The last time Agent Kristopher had woken from his trance was over four years ago.

Daisy let out a short laugh. “We’re going, Joseph.”

 

**Brooklyn**

As the three boys stood at the back of the gymnasium, while their classmates all dated with their dates, they saw the girls enter through the side door and make their way over. 

Unlike the boys, who only wore ironed shirts and brushed their hair, the three girls had made an effort. Jodie and Samantha had their hair up in buns, they each wore long skirts and Jodie had applied makeup. Samantha wore a white cardigan and Freddi had a lilac poncho about her shoulders.

“Is this your cousin you were telling me about?” Vanessa asked Sam, nudging him playfully.

“Yeah,” Sam rubbed his arm where she had poked him, “But please don’t embarrass me.”

“Sure,” Vanessa smirked, pulling some of her thick hair behind her ear. The problem with her smiling was when she did, her moles protruded.

“I don’t honestly know what you see in her.” Joe told Sam through gritted teeth.

When the girls came up, Vanessa started talking nineteen to the dozen at them as Joe took each of his friends by the arm and pulled them aside. “Listen, I brought this with us. We might need help.” He pulled the Book from under his jacket.

Sam and Fred’s eyes widened. “But didn’t Uncle Joe…” Sam began, but Joe hushed him.

“For some reason, he came by earlier today and told us to meet him in 1973. Sam, you better get rid of that bird’s nest of yours before the six of us can warp.”

Sam rolled his eyes and walked up to Vanessa. “Err, Vanessa,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “the six of us – we’re going home.”

“Oh,” Vanessa’s grin faded, “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah,” Sam said the first thing that came to mind, “Anna, Joe’s sister, isn’t feeling well, Fred has to get up tomorrow and I never really liked dances anyway. But come by tomorrow, will you? Please?” He said all of this in one breath, gave Vanessa a quick kiss on the cheek, grabbed Samantha by the hand and led her out just as he tasted the blueberry skin balm in his mouth.

“Gosh, Sam,” Samantha snickered, “I thought you’d explode! Your cheeks were all red!” She started pulling at the skin of his cheek and he groaned.

“Anyway,” Joe told them, “we’d better get to 1973. Do you know where, Sam?”

“20th May,” Sam answered, “I guess try the Watergate Hotel.”

Joe opened the Book and saw the message from Uncle Joe. He felt almost blown away when he read that these were previous lives the green-eyed children took over, but Sam spouted some complicated jargon about this making sense.

Nevertheless, Joe typed in the locations. He, Jodie and Fred would go with Uncle Joe and Daisy, while the others went to the Watergate.

As the green mist flew about them, none of them noticed a figure in the darkness staring out at them.

“Sam?” Vanessa asked, squinting at where he had been, removing her glasses and blinking.

 

**19th May 1973**   
**Watergate Hotel, Washington D.C**

Sam, Samantha and Freddi were already inside the hotel. Due to the media coverage, reporters wanted to come in, but the staff had threatened to call the police if they did so.  
This meant that very few were allowed in at all and the trio needed to be careful.

As they entered the swimming pool area, Freddi stared ahead at the girl splashing her legs in the water.

Faith was once again in the body of Italian Rosa. Her auburn hair was in a long plait and she wore a light blue swimming costume. She hadn’t seemed to have noticed the three of them. She was enjoying her last few hours before their final mission was over.

Freddi looked from her great-grandmother and back to her friends. “Right,” she whispered, although she wasn’t sure why, “what’s the plan?”

Sam frowned as he concentrated. “I’d say that we try to find Joshua and Gary first. But they’ll be difficult. At least one of us needs to keep an eye on Faith.”

“I’ll do it,” Freddi pulled hair behind her ear nervously as she saw Faith slip down slowly into the water, “Don’t worry.”

Her friends went back into the main building as Freddi stood in the doorway, watching Faith. She felt a little bad for spying on Faith while the girl was unaware, but Freddi knew that she had to.

Not just because if she didn’t save Faith right now, Freddi might vanish. Because Faith needed to be free.

Sam and Samantha tried upstairs. They had no idea where the two boys were – and they knew that employees could come out at any moment and possibly call the police – but Sam had the bright idea of checking the sign-in register.

He had no clue what names the boys used, but he knew that Faith was using Rosa Scuderi. Or was it Rosa Sciacca? Maybe she didn’t know how to pronounce Rosa’s surname.

He pointed at the names on the paper. “Room 194.” he said to Samantha before they headed to the elevator.

They reached the right floor and went down the hallway. Samantha considered knocking, but Sam wasn’t too sure.

“They can fight, Samantha,” he pointed out, “and Gary’s rather good.”

“I know,” Samantha pulled away, “I’d say we ambush them.” Then she smirked.

Sam thought that it was very creepy when she did that. He didn’t know who she got it from. Certainly not from him.

Joshua had just completed his casting spell when there was a knock at the door. He stood up, placing the tapes under his mattress, before he walked up to the door and slowly creaked it open.

“Yes?” he called out, this body’s Italian accent cutting through the air like a knife.

Then he felt somebody grabbing him, pinning his arms to his waist. His mind whirred as he tried to think of the right spell to send them flying. His body started to glow a vivid green as the power flowed through him and his hands trembled as energy swirled about his fingers.

But before he could do anything, his wrists had been yanked behind him and tied with curtain cord.

“Now!” he heard his assailant shrieking. 

Joshua regretted not trying to wrestle himself away or shout. That would have been much quicker than trying to conjure spells.

Something that resembled the sort of rod dog-catchers use looped about his neck and yanked him backwards into the room.

Sam was shaking tremendously, since despite being the same age, this young man was physically larger. Sam had no clue if he would succeed, but the two of them dragged Joshua inside before Samantha slammed the door.

Joshua started to glow slightly. He lifted a few inches off the ground and a green pattern encircled beneath him. He started to mutter something and some things in the room began to hover. A vase, the pillows and duvets, a few coat-hangars and even toilet roll.

But Samantha slapped him hard on his jaw, causing Joshua to snap out of the trance. Everything fell and he stopped hovering.

“Get off me!” Joshua snapped, “We’ve got the Watergate tapes. And we’re going home soon. Try your best, skinny.”

Sam ignored him, leaning down, pulling a shoelace out of his pocket and trying Joshua’s ankles. The bigger boy glared daggers at him.

“I knew you lot were going to strike,” he sneered, “You bloody –“

Footsteps sounded outside. “Joshua?” Gary called, curiously, “You finished?”

Samantha clamped her hand over Joshua’s mouth and nodded to the door, motioning for Sam to sort him out. Joshua twisted about and even bit her hand. But Samantha, despite the searing pain, didn’t let go.

When Sam opened the door, he dived at Gary’s middle, tackling him to the floor. Gary, immediately realizing the situation, kicked out and then punched Sam hard across the cheek, causing his head to turn so fast that his glasses nearby fell off.

Sam let go and then Gary ran into the room. Samantha stood up, fists clenched and ready to punch. Gary was not above punching a girl, especially a Time Agent. Even if she had helped him.

“Isaac, huh?” she asked, stepping back over Joshua in case the boy tried to trip her up.

“Well, well,” Gary gave a sharp laugh, “Natasha. You’ve grown so much. You actually became pretty.” Then he paused. “Why are you wearing a ripped dress?”

“It was prom night,” Samantha narrowed her eyes at him, “You know, Mad Jack said I was pretty as well.”

Gary paused for a second. Then his face cleared. “Mr Jack? I’d say he’s right.”

“He saw me when I was seventeen, but he knew me at twelve.” Samantha snapped drily.

“What?” Gary pulled a face.

Samantha hadn’t wanted to say all of this out loud, especially to somebody like Gary August, but it was a good opportunity for Sam to take advantage of the distraction.

Sam had grabbed the china toothbrush-holder from the bathroom and hit Gary on the shoulder hard. Gary then grabbed his shoulder, before Sam pushed him onto the bed, facedown.

“You know, if you go return, Andrew will be furious with you,” Sam told the struggling young man, using another shoelace to tie his wrists, “He probably told you not to be distracted.”

“Pretty much.” Gary mumbled into the duvet.

“He won’t care,” Joshua snarled, pushing himself up by the other bed, “Dad’s going to take us to live inside time.”

“You don’t know that,” Samantha crossed her arms and she looked down, “Andrew might want to simply abandon you and use the money for himself.”

“We’re his kids,” Joshua argued, “No matter what, we’re his kids and he has to look after us.”

Samantha sighed and then sat down.

“Joshua,” she pulled Jodie’s Book from under her cardigan, “that’s not true.”

Freddi had followed Faith upstairs, keeping a distance.

This life had small hips and her pants kept slipping. Her wrist was also awfully small, as was her tie-dye shirt, Freddi noticed. Maybe Rosa suffered from an eating disorder?

Once they had gone up another floor, the two of them suddenly heard muffled shouting. Faith looked up and ran towards what Freddi presumed was her room.

“Let them go!” Faith shrieked as she ran into her room. But Freddi was too fast and grabbed Faith by her incredibly thin waist.

“Sorry, Faith,” Freddi tried to tell her, but Faith tried to get away anyway.

Freddi got Faith onto her knees and managed to yank her wrists behind her.

“We just want you to listen to us,” Samantha stood up, holding the Book, “Just humour us.”

The green-eyed children stared at her as she carried on.

“What do you want?” Joshua sneered. “You do realize that Andrew could take us back any minute?”

“Well, when he does,” Samantha told them, “you’ll have our friends to deal with. This is your final mission, but did he tell you what he’ll do after you’ve done?”

The three thieves glanced at each other, awkwardly.

“He wouldn’t just leave us,” Faith replied, although she wasn’t sure if this was true, “Dad loves us.”

“And that’s the other problem,” Samantha said, showing Joshua the page where the newspaper articles were, “Guys, Andrew isn’t your dad.” Then she sighed. This was the toughest thing she might ever have to do.

“Andrew kidnapped your moms while they were pregnant. And he murdered them. He – he wanted children born outside of time. Joshua, your mom’s name is Ruth White and she was from a family of psychics.”

Sam carried on, noticing that Samantha had difficulty. “Gary, your mom was called Wei August and she was from a family of soldiers and gold medalists.”

He looked at Faith. “And your mom is Isabel Wilson and she was a historian. She –“

“The angel in pink?” Faith asked, going limp, not even bothering to struggle any more. “That’s – Mom?” The word tasted funny in her mouth.

Samantha showed the articles, as Joshua and Faith took a good look. Sam got off from Gary’s back and the other boy sat up.

Samantha then used the hologram to show them in full.

Joshua had gone very quiet. His brother and sister hadn’t seen him this quiet and thoughtful.

“She – she’s got my hair,” he gave out a short laugh, “a-and her little boy. Guys, doesn’t that look like me when I was a kid?”

Gary and Faith were silent, thinking for the first time how none of them looked like Andrew.

Where their mom – moms – were.

“That’s the angel,” Faith let the tears fall down her cheeks, “She sees me. She – brought Fred to me, when I first met him when I was ten. My – my angel’s my mommy.”

Gary asked Samantha, “Could you just show me that picture of Mrs August for a sec, please?”

Samantha walked up, bringing the Book over to him so he could take a good look at the picture. A thin woman in a green-and-red outfit, smiling with her hand around the cheek of a little boy.

“I have – I have three other siblings?” he asked.

Samantha replied, “They were fourteen, ten and five in ’77. If we play our cards right, they won’t be much older than you when you next see them.”

“I have another brother, don’t I?” Joshua asked from the floor, “What’s his name?”

“Zachariah.” Sam answered.

Joshua licked his lip in thought. “I rather like that name.”

Then Faith asked Samantha, “What now? If we come back, will Andrew hurt us? Are you friends there yet?”

“I think they are,” Sam replied, “How do we get you out?”

“We’ll still be dozy when we descend,” Gary told them, “but you have to be careful. It’s not just because our souls need to be there. It’s since our hair is so long and knotty that it could get tangled. You need to cut us free.”

“Why is it so long?” Freddi asked, loosening her grip on Faith so the girl would be able to stand.

“Being born and living outside of time makes it grow fast,” Joshua answered matter-of-factly, “We file down our nails every day. We only get haircuts on our birthday.”

“My hair was as long as my body since I was two,” Faith sniggered, “I had to sleep with it in a plait.”

Then Joshua piped up, “Since our final bodies are going to die tomorrow morning, I think it’s best if you untie us and let us get drunk.”

“How do they die?” Sam pushed his glasses up. He never thought he’d need to ask that question.

“Remember the mafia, whose member we horribly murdered?” Gary asked, as if it were of no importance, “By May 1973, the mafia tracked the Italians to Washington D.C, where they were in witness protection. That’s why we have two different surnames.”

“And they shoot us at 6.05am in the morning, so I think we need to get seriously drunk if we’re going to be asleep when they kill them.” Faith gave out a chuckle.

These three were very morbid, Samantha decided, as Faith started to unlock the hotel room safe and take out wine bottles.

 

**26th April 2013**   
**Outside Time**

Jodie, Joe and Fred had already found their way into Faith’s bedroom. Joe had suggested perhaps sending some of their treasured belongings back to the Time Agency, if to make them feel more comfortable when they arrived. There was no point in worrying about Andrew, since he was passed out on the couch.

Jodie had gone inside Faith’s room and had sent the duvet and pillow, as well as some well-thumbed books on the shelves and some pieces of paper hung up around the room. She even took out a sketchpad from Faith’s bedside table.

Chuckling when she saw – rather mediocre – drawings of Fred, Jodie had used Joe’s Book to send them to the Time Agency.

Then she looked at the index cards in the box. Leafing through them, she was amazed at exactly how many missions the three went to.

She identified Hammurabi’s Code, Skara Brae, Stonehenge and Sappho’s lost work instantly. She also found that sometimes the mission didn’t involve specific artifacts, but information about a culture; Troy, the Sea People, Philistines, Etruscans, Cretans, Greeks.

Other lost works were here, too. The original _Homer’s Odyssey_ , _Book of Bai Ze Tu_ , Dead Sea Scrolls and the supposed lost Q source, Sibylline books from Rome. There was also four lost Elizabethan plays, one of them Shakespeare’s. The original _Beowulf_ manuscript, thought to be lost in 1731, as well as Bach’s 120b, both taken by the same previous life. _Gothic History_ was mentioned as well.

Jodie also noticed the cards included the tombs of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan; constructions of places like the Taulas of Minorca, Pumapunku in Bolivia, Nan Madol out in the Pacific Ocean.

The recipe for Roman concrete and the Treasure of Lima were there as well. Two sets of English crown jewels, and the Irish.

It was actually astonishing.

Joe, Fred and Daisy had reached the immersion pool. They hadn’t seen Andrew anywhere, which was probably a bad thing. They had to get the three back quickly.

When Joe and Fred looked at the pool, they started to wish that they hadn’t.

Joshua, Gary and Faith – or rather, the bodies of the three siblings – were lying outstretched in the water, stark naked. The only modesty they had were their long locks flowing about them.

 

**20th May 1973**   
**Washington D.C**

Faith lay back against the pillows on her bed, her legs pushed up to her chest and holding a glass of brandy. She was giggling and Freddi swore that the girl was drunk. Samantha and Gary were on the other bed, as she held the sherry bottle, pouring for him when his hands shook. None of them wanted to give them alcohol, but if it meant the previous lives would be killed by the mafia in six hours without them waking up, it was reasonable.

Joshua was on the couch, sagging into the cushions. His eyes were staring into the distance and he started slurring his words. He had also gotten wine onto Sam’s shirt, who felt rather uncomfortable at being sat next to the gruff one of the three.

“How long is your hair?” Sam asked. He had been mostly silent since the thieves had started drinking, but as usual, when he found something interesting, he wanted to know as much as possible.

“Waist.” Joshua belched as he slumped over the arm of the couch.

Gary nodded as he lay down on his back. “Yes, I’m the one with black hair, Joshua’s the ginger.”

Joshua slurred, just as he closed his eyes and his body glowed a faint green. At approximately the same time, Faith and Gary groaned and fell asleep, before glowing again.

“They’ve gone back. At last.” Freddi grumbled, opening the Book and typing in the destination.

 

**26th April 2013**   
**Outside Time**

Uncle Joe found Andrew. Or rather, Andrew was waiting for him in the swimming pool.

Andrew was floating inches off of the water, his hair flapping around in green wind. He had his arms crossed and looked absolutely furious.

“I suspected Time Agents had turned my daughter,” he spoke in a cold, quiet voice, “And I assumed rightly. You’ve grown, Joseph Arthur. How is your brother?”

“In prison. Where you’re going, Andrew,” Uncle Joe opened his pen, but Andrew had a finger up.

The pen flew from Uncle Joe’s hand and fell down to the bottom of the blue waters.

“You may be wondering what I wanted to do when I had the riches from my discoveries,” Andrew smirked, hovering closer to Uncle Joe, his expression still the same, “I would still keep my children. But I would lock them away, down in the darkest dungeons, where no-one will ever find them. If I can’t have the children, no-one can.”

Uncle Joe frowned. “They are not your children.”

“I raised them,” Andrew spoke nonchalantly, “I fed them, rocked them. I taught them and encouraged them. Consider my choices for them reasonable.”

“Andrew, where’s Isabel?” Uncle Joe tried his best to distract Andrew while the others rescued the children.

Andrew had come up to Uncle Joe, noses almost touching, he was so close. He still had his arms crossed and his fingertips were glowing faintly, the power inside burning.

“Wei didn’t survive her labor. I thought she would die; have you ever tried performing a Cesarean with a front door key? Ruth survived for some time after, but she was too weak to wake up. Isabel was lucky. She looked after the three. I didn’t want screaming babies to be my responsibility. When they were toddling, I had her drowned in this pool. Her body’s under the pit.”

“Your suffered loss,” Uncle Joe raised his voice, “You lost Evelyn. How could you take these children from their families?”

Andrew grunted. “They were very powerful. Ingenious minds, strength and sorcery. It would be a waste. You have no idea how hard it was to make timelines, where a life lives only a certain amount of years, months, days, seconds. It destroyed me.”

Uncle Joe took a good look at Andrew. He had white tuffs around his forehead and his hands had started to go gnarly and the bones were nearly visible. While he was still physically young elsewhere. It was rather unnerving to see.

“Joseph Arthur,” Andrew spoke calmly and authoritatively, without blinking once, “I will kill you. Then I will kill your son, the boy I have noticed you speak with. And onto his friends. I shall make Daisy wish she were dead before I break her neck. I will cut the throats of the little girls myself, before I let the boys drown. And I will have my Faith see her precious lover die in front of her eyes.”

Uncle Joe saw how this man had turned Mad Jack into the monster he now was. Uncle Joe knew he had to yell, give the others a chance of escape. He could see the pen and he knew that Andrew had never been that physically strong so he could easily wrestle the man.

Before he could attack, however, Andrew seemed to freeze.

Uncle Joe was confused. He stepped away, turning about the man. Then he looked down at his pen.

Wondering if he should dive down and grab it, he saw a flash in his mind’s eye, just for a split second. An angel with large pink wings had Andrew in a fierce grip. She was glancing back at Uncle Joe as she screamed, “Get it!”

Uncle Joe didn’t have to be told twice. Diving in and grabbing the pen, before swimming to the surface, he headed out of the room before using a magic to seal the door up.

A few seconds later, Isabel was unable to hold on Andrew and he burst free, gasping for air as he went onto his knees.

“You -----!” he yelled to the air about him.

 

In the immersion pool, Daisy managed to wave her bracelet around, guiding medium-sized green orbs to the bodies below.

“They are all right,” she told the boys, “but I think they’re drunk.”

“Drunk?” Joe exclaimed, puzzled, “Oh – let’s help them.”

A green wind whirled about the room as Sam, Samantha and Freddi landed on the rock beside Daisy.

Sam looked about the room. Before he could notice much about the architecture, he found himself glancing south. Faith, Joshua and Gary were still in the immersion pool, all naked and their hair floating around them.

He stared at their hair. They weren’t kidding when they said that it was ridiculously long. Daisy gave him her bracelet, which was now a knife. “Good!” Daisy cried, leaving the room, “Get them out! I’ll fetch Jodie!”

Joe enviously looked at the knife, wondering when he would be able to make one.

Sam knelt down on the – thankfully dry – rocks in front of Gary. Grabbing Gary’s ankle, Sam tugged the wet, naked boy closer. “Can I have a hand?” he called out.

“But they’re naked.” Freddi groaned. But she carefully walked up, anyway. As soon as Gary was slightly nearer to the edge, Sam leaned in as far as he could, grabbed a hunk of hair and started shearing. Ten seconds later, Gary’s hair was still relatively long, but it now reached just beyond his shoulders.

Freddi and Sam slowly lifted Gary out and laid him on the towel on the grassy knoll.

Joe and Samantha had gone around the other side to try and get Joshua out. Fred waded in and knelt to take a good look at Faith. By now, Samantha had sliced Joshua’s hair to his shoulders and she and Joe were carrying him out.

Fred stood up, took the knife from Joe’s hand and started trying to grab the flowing hair about the girl.

There was an immense growl from outside the room. Daisy burst in, holding Jodie by the hand as the girl clutched her Book tight to her heart. Uncle Joe paced in after them, barricading the door with his body. Daisy did the same, looking back at the children.

“Get them out of here!” she cried, as something pounded against the doors, nearly shaking the two adults off their feet.

“I’m not leaving you!” Joe called to his uncle, who only chuckled, despite the circumstances.

“I’ll start now,” he held the pen up and concentrated as the mist swirled about them, “get Faith out, Fred. Then you’ll go.”

But when Fred had managed to tug Faith out, the others had already gone. Looking between his sleeping crush, lying on her side, and back at the two desperate Time Agents, he grabbed at the only clump of Faith’s hair that he could, slicing it and throwing the knife toward the door.

Daisy hadn’t even looked behind her, but held her hand up in the air as it twirled around her wrist and became a bracelet.

As Andrew burst the door down, or rather into hundreds of pieces, Uncle Joe and Daisy were picked up by time mist. As the four disappeared, Andrew let out a yell of rage.

 

**26th April 2013**   
**Brooklyn**

The rescue party landed in Joe’s living room rather than the Time Agency. The three wet, naked green-eyed children were carefully laid out on armchairs, slowly blinking and stirring.

“Why did we come back here?” Joe asked.

His uncle put his hat on the table and looked about, before he walked to the window and shut the curtains. “Andrew knows the Time Agency. The three should stay here until otherwise. We have to stop him and – sadly – kill him before we have any chance of helping them to safety.”

“Kill?” Freddi squeaked.

“I’m afraid we need to,” Daisy explained, as her bracelet glowed, “I need to return. Defend the Time Agency.”

When she left, Fred darted over to Faith.

“Faith? Are you there?” he asked, kneeling by the side, “It’s Fred.”

Faith’s eyes flickered open and she noticed him. Fred realized this was the first time the two of them had really been together, where they could touch the other’s real form.

“Fred…” she muttered, before sitting up straight, groaning horribly, “Argh! Are hangovers this awful?”

“You’re all right!” Fred cried. Faith then held her hands over her ears, screwing up her eyes.

Jodie, Joe and Samantha walked over to where the boys were lying down.

“Err,” Jodie spoke, trying to look at Joshua’s face and not his other bits, “they need clothes. Or a towel. Or – anything so long as I don’t have to see – that!”

Joe grumbled, grabbing the cabinet door under the couch, pulling out a blanket and flinging it over the young man. Fred took the other and wrapped it around Faith’s front, propping a nearby cushion from a couch under her head.

Uncle Joe sighed. “I will remain here tonight, Joe. In case Andrew comes by. I severely doubt he will come close, but I need to stay anyway.”

Then there was a shriek from the landing. Anna had come out to see what was going on and was staring down at the party below her. Joanna had toddled out of her room to see why Anna was yelling, but the girl held her back, blocking her view.

Even so, she hissed through clenched teeth at her brother, “Care to explain why there’s a naked man in my armchair?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was exhausting to write, so I might not put any more chapters up for a while. I do hope you enjoyed the story so far. There's still a couple more surprises to come, so grab onto your seats...


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry this is late. The Internet didn't work for a while.

**27th April 2013  
Brooklyn**

Faith had woken up. Stretching her hand over the back of the armchair, she pulled herself up. She then saw Freddi and Samantha sitting on the adjacent couch. The boys had already woken up and gone upstairs and they found themselves looking at the tired, naked young lady.

“Oh!” she squealed, before she quickly smiled, sitting up, “I don’t know what I thought being in time would be like on my body.” Then she gave a half-hearted wave at them, standing up to try and look about. “Where is the coffee?”

Samantha blinked a few times. “Faith, could you please put some clothes on? Most people don’t – walk around naked,” she murmured under her breath as Faith arrived at the breakfast bar.

“But what can I wear?” Faith asked, without turning back.

“I’ll see if Anna has anything.” Freddi replied, heading up the stairs.

Samantha felt lucky that Joe’s parents weren’t here and it was relatively early enough for the blinds to be drawn.

Meanwhile, Joshua and Gary were in Joe’s bedroom. Joshua wore some of Joe’s clothes, although they were a little scuffed. He did not feel like himself in these clothes. When they grew up, Joshua and Gary had neater, tighter clothes aside from when they were doing exercises. The sort that Andrew only gave them because he had worn those as a boy. _Oh well,_ Joshua told himself, _at least you’re not wearing goatskin again._

Gary chose Joe’s dressing gown and a pair of pants, which he said he felt perfectly comfortable in. Joshua simply groaned.

“Gary,” he tried reasoning with him, “you can’t spend the whole day wearing that! Put a shirt on, please.”

Gary let himself laugh for the first time in what could have been weeks. “Oh, Joshua, you’re such a prude! I wear what I want. It’s the first time I’ve ever been allowed to make my own choice.”

Joe nodded, doing his best to try and keep out of the argument. Just as long as nobody broke anything. Breaking including him.

Joshua looked to Joe’s bedside table. He picked up the photograph of Joe, Anna and Joanne at Christmas. Joanne had waved her arms about and one of them was blurred.

“Are these your sisters?” Joshua asked, genuinely interested.

Joe found his voice. “Yeah, Anna’s my sister. Err, Gary gave her a shock last night.”

“Why?” Gary looked up from choosing between two t-shirts.

“She – well –“ Joe rubbed the back of his neck, “saw you on the armchair.”

“Oh!” Gary let out a small chuckle. “I see.”

Joe sat down next to Joshua and pointed at Joanne. “This is my daughter.”

“Your daughter?” Joshua asked. Then he perked up. “She looks just like you, Joe.”

Joe wondered why they didn’t ask why Joe was only seventeen but Joanne was a toddler. But he supposed that they went to times where preparation for married life and parenthood for both sexes began as soon as they left puberty.

Then Gary asked, “Those boys with you last night, where did they go?”

“They went home,” Joe explained, “And Jodie went back home as well.”

“I thought they were your brothers.” Joshua seemed puzzled. “You act like they are.”

Joe felt a small pang of embarrassment, though he was unsure why. They didn’t even look alike.

Then he remembered that until yesterday, the three green-eyed thieves thought they were brothers and sister despite the fact that they had different hair color and Gary was Chinese. And they also thought mousy-brown-haired, grasshopper-like Andrew was their dad, so they obviously didn’t know anything about genetics.

Besides, they must have gone to time periods where death by childbirth and death by accidents and war was so common that stepparents were scattered all over the place. Still, it was amazing that the three of them managed to get to eighteen without questioning this.

Samantha soon grabbed a blue blouse of Anna’s and white leggings. Faith found that they were perfect. Then she grabbed at her hair, twirling strands in between her fingers.

“Maybe I should cut a little more off?” she asked. “The worst part of my daily routine was brushing it so much. I had to lather my hair in enough shampoo to bathe a horse.”

“If you want your hair cut,” Freddi recommended, “we could do it.”

Soon, Faith leant over the sink in the bathroom and let Freddi cut her hair. By the time she was finished, Faith’s hair was about two inches lower than her shoulders.

Samantha blinked a few times. Aside from the fact that her nose was smaller, her eyebrows were thinner and her eyes were green, Faith now looked just like Freddi.

It was actually creepy.

 

Several hours later, Joshua was meditating in the living room. It would not have been so annoying if he wasn’t hovering. Gary was on the couch, also cross-legged, but analyzing an encyclopedia of twentieth century weapons. Faith was leafing through a book on a TV show. TV now fascinated her.

Joanne had stared about at the three new people in her house. She had held Anna’s hand and gripped tightly onto her aunt’s trousers, anxious. She didn’t want these weird people here. She definitely wasn’t about to talk to them.

So Anna had had to take Joanne upstairs and let her eat her dinner in her bedroom.

Uncle Joe was prowling outside with his pen, checking for anything out of the ordinary. As if having three strange people here wasn’t weirdness enough, Jodie grumbled as she rolled her eyes in Joshua’s direction.

Joe was about to tell her not to be rude, but Samantha sat up in her chair.

“Guys, we need to make plans for later,” she told them, “When Joe’s parents come back, they won’t be happy about three strangers in their house. We need to make sure they stay safe in the Time Agency.”

“We should ask Uncle Joe when he finishes,” Joe murmured, “but they should stay inside time.”

“Why?” Jodie asked her great-grandfather, “They seem all right.”

“Look at how pale they are,” Joe turned his head to look in their direction, “Their bodies have never seen sunlight. They’re lacking vitamin D.”

“Since when did you become so concerned?” Jodie teased.

Joe frowned at her. “When I became a parent.”

That shut Jodie up. She looked down at the floor, feeling guilty.

“Listen, we’re graduating on the third,” Sam pushed his glasses up, “We could think about it then.”

“What exactly are you going to do over the summer?” Fred asked his friend, “Let me guess; sitting in libraries with a dozen books piled high, making notes for no reason and taking Vanessa to the museum.”

“Have you eavesdropped on my phone call again?” Sam scowled, but that only led Fred to give a small laugh. “Oh,” Sam realized, “you guessed.”

Uncle Joe entered as he placed his pen back in his pocket. “The house is safe,” he stood up straight, folding his hands behind his back, “No sign of Andrew. Now, onto the situation at hand; where do our visitors go?”

 

It was decided that the three of them were to stay here for now. Joe’s mom had been contacted and was told that some visitors from the Time Agency were staying over. She accepted it and didn’t even fight her brother any more. Uncle Joe wondered how much of that was from her abduction.

Then after graduation, when barriers had been set up at the Time Agency to stop Andrew from entering, they could move there. Daisy had woken the three meditating old men and said they needed to put the boundaries up. It was the tightest security the Time Agency had ever had to use. The timing would be perfect, as the whole spell would take a week to occur.

Faith opened the curtains in Joe’s room and then opened the window. Gingerly, she held her skinny, pale hand out into the sunlight and held it there. She turned it over and stared down.

“You OK?” Fred stood at the door, watching.

She only stared out of the window. “I – this is the first time I’ve felt sunlight.”

“Haven’t you felt it in your other bodies?” Fred asked, eyebrow raised, entering the bedroom to stand next to her.

Faith answered, “But they were used to heat. This – I never felt the warmth before.”

“How is it?” Fred asked her.

She gave a chuckle. “It feels great.”

 

**28th April 2013  
Brooklyn**

Joe lay on his bed as he listened intently. Sometimes he would have to get up in the night when Joanne was crying. But now he had three, scared children to deal with.

Joshua was lying on Joe’s floor, inside a sleeping bag by the cupboard door. He dropped off pretty quickly, his red hair spilling out over his pillow. Gary, on the other hand, was sat by the door until way past midnight, reading a book with a lamp he had brought down from the attic.

“It’s natural,” he explained when Joe asked him what was going on, “I’ve been a soldier many times. Even a scampering rat under the floor in the next room wouldn’t escape my attention.”

“You know we have other lamps,” Joe settled under the duvet, his eyes still fixed on the boy.

“I prefer this type,” Gary didn’t look up from the book, “I wouldn’t know any newer models.”

Faith was asleep in Anna’s room, also using a sleeping bag. Anna, however, was awake and staring up at the ceiling in thought.

Uncle Joe had said something about these three being the children of a very bad person. A person who had taught Mad Jack all of his magic. If that was true, Anna had asked, why did they come here?

Uncle Joe told her that her house was the safest place for these three, but Anna didn’t ask any more.

“You’re just like your mother,” Uncle Joe had sighed, before he disappeared in green mist.

Anna wasn’t sure what he meant by that.

Upstairs, Faith had been looking through the old toybox at the back of Anna’s room. She picked up the stuffed animals and smiled, holding them in her hands one at a time, feeling the weight and chuckling.

As Fred had stood in the doorway, he saw Faith take out a toy train and started lining up the railroad tracks. “Oh, hi,” she smiled up at him, “This toy is wonderful. I never really played with any toy trains. Just learn which order to put the tracks, so we would know where to jump on. It feels great not to have to stick to any rules during playtime.”

It occurred to Fred that the green-eyed children must have had a very strict playtime. The fun wouldn’t be there. They would have had to walk on eggshells so as not to anger Andrew.

It was a little sad to see a woman playing with stuffed animals and dolls as if she were a little girl.

 

**30th April 2013  
Brooklyn**

Faith felt comfortable walking outside for the first time.

Joe, Sam and Fred took her along to the convenience stores nearby. Faith had seemed so interested in the world around her. She didn’t know anything other than how to play a part. As she had no clue what 2010s New York was like, she spent most of her time pointing or dragging Fred about by the hand. They soon got bored of this and Fred suggested maybe going grocery shopping.

When they had entered a store near Fred’s house, she kept looking at the various canned and tinned meats and packets, examining them in her hands as she turned them over.

“There aren’t any Hershey bars here, are there?” she turned her head towards Fred, who had his arms crossed and looked a little tired of her just standing over gaping at everything, “When I was in Emese, I saw one at a market stall and it tasted delicious! I wonder where that market is now. It said Bayard Street. How far away is that?”

“Yeah, they’ve got Hersheys,” Fred shrugged, nodding towards the next aisle, “Do you have any allergies?”

“Andrew gave us tests,” Faith explained, “so I don’t think so.”

When she saw the thin, chocolate bar and held it in her hand, Faith seemed rather disappointed. “They don’t look the same.”

“Of course not,” Joe snickered from beside them, “the one you saw was from a hundred years ago.”

“OK,” Sam came up with a basket, “How about we look for stuff that you remember from before?”

Faith frowned in concentration. “All of the stuff we had must have come from the Seventies or Eighties. Those were the sell-by dates I saw, anyway.”

“Well, let’s go,” Sam asked, taking her arm and leading her off, “Show me what you had in other lives.”

Fred and Joe shared a nervous glance as they followed after the history buffs.

Fifteen minutes later, the basket had been filled. Fred couldn’t believe how much of it was from when Emese and Rosa had been alive.

Canned tuna, cornflakes, Campbell’s soup, cola and animal crackers had all been around in 1922 apparently. Fred wasn’t surprised at the ginger ale or coffee, but he was at most of the stuff. Faith had also tried looking for Russian dressing, which Sam had to gently tell her wasn’t here.

In another basket were the items from the 1960s. Pizza, barbecue sauce, potato chips, orange juice and apple pie. All of this was stuff the boys recognized, but Faith knew them from different packaging.

They’d had to designate three shelves in the fridge for them all. When Sam, his interest peaked, asked Faith about the worst food she’d eaten, she pulled a face when shutting the fridge door.

“Pottage isn’t the worst thing I’ve eaten,” she said, sitting on the table next to Fred, chewing gum, “but it’s definitely tasteless. In the Holy Land, there was apparently something called mummified man, which I don’t think I need to go into detail.”

“Bread with acorns,” Joshua sat up on the couch, his hands inches apart as some cards flew between, “That was the worst. Or whale meat.”

“Spider,” Gary answered as he came in through the doorway, holding a dumbbell he’d found in the attic two days ago, “Cambodia. Or cow’s tongue from Shakespearian London.”

“I’m sure the mock turtle soup from Covent Garden was worse,” Joshua chuckled, placing the cards on the table.

“OK,” Fred interrupted, trying to steer the conversation away as soon as possible, mainly because he actually wanted his dinner to _stay_ in his stomach, “Are any of you coming to our graduation on Friday?”

“You need protection,” Gary placed the dumbbell down on the floor as Joshua levitated it, “I’m in.”

“And magical protection,” Joshua used his magic to place the dumbbell on the couch beside him, “I’m in.”

“Faith?” Joe asked. She took the gum out and fiddled with it in her fingers.

“Please don’t do that; that’s dirty.” Sam mumbled, but nobody paid attention.

“Faith?” Fred asked her, trying to get a better look at her face. She met his gaze and smiled, nodding. “I’ll go. First chance for a proper date in this body.”

Fred blushed. He groaned as he took his hat off and held his head in his hands. Faith hadn’t noticed, retreating up the stairs.

He had no idea what to do about her.

 

**3rd May 2013  
Brooklyn**

The graduation was crowded. Dressed in their caps and gowns, behind the stage, the boys sat nervously. Graduation should be normal, not coincide with a puzzling mess.

Since it was alphabetical, Joe was the third kid that went up to get his degree. From the audience Julia, Joanne, Anna and Jodie waved back at him. Actually, Joanne was sucking on the ear of Anna’s old rabbit, but she seemed to know something good had just happened.

Then Fred’s name – “Fred Fiechter.” – was called. When he had gone up, Sam gripped onto his cap in his hands, squirming in his seat.

“Don’t be worried, you’re going to be fine…” Sam muttered to himself.

But when his name was called – “Sam Sutton.” – he gave a squeak, practically ran onto the stage, almost bumped into the podium and tried his best not to trip over his gown.

“Is this normal?” Joshua whispered to Samantha beside him, “A public display of achievements?”

“In 2013, yeah.” Samantha answered. She turned to Gary on her left. He was standing, slowly looking about himself, as if expecting Andrew to suddenly appear in a flash. Maybe he was.

“Gary, sit down,” she pulled at his shirt, “You’re drawing attention to yourself.”

Sitting beside Freddi, Mike and Fred’s mother was Vanessa, who up until now had focused on Sam on the stage. But now she saw Samantha whispering hurriedly to Gary to sit down.

“And who exactly is that?” Vanessa asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Gary,” Freddi told her, pulling on her sleeve so as the young woman would look back at the stage, “He’s just left the army.”

“Why hasn’t Sam told me about his weird cousins before?” Vanessa scratched at a mole. “He usually tells me everything.”

Freddi nodded, remembering how Sam had almost been attacked by bushmen in the Outbreak when he tried retrieving genuine arrowheads for Vanessa’s birthday. “Yes, I know he does,” she rubbed the back of her neck, “But – well – there are some things we don’t like to share.”

Faith had decided to sit under the bleachers. She didn’t like the sun. Maybe it was harsh on her skin because she had never been outside, but she wasn’t a fan of sunlight. Maybe she was like a vampire. They’d thought the three kids were vampires, back in 1550. They’d stolen books from inside the library of Ivan the Terrible. Joshua had levitated to get them out of the building and people accused them of being vampires.

Every time Faith had descended into a past life, she had been able to access that body’s memories. But she also sometimes remembered the painful deaths. Shellfish poisoning in Skara Brae, falling from a boat and drowning in Kekova, killed by Greek fire in thirteenth century Constantinople.

Sometimes she had seen pictures of the bodies she had inhabited, found centuries later by archaeologists. The body inside the Great Wall as punishment for refusing to work, as Faith had had to leave to steal forbidden texts. That Chinese peasant had been just ten and a half. 

The battered body of Bolivian construction workers, under Pumapunku. The tiny Skeleton Lake body, curled up in fear and cold. Pearl Cartwright’s body in her casket.  
What would Faith’s last death be like?

She didn’t notice when someone had come up behind her in the darkness. But she felt Andrew’s cold hand around her neck. She started to tear at his face, as he had taught her to. He only chuckled.

“Don’t even try, daughter,” he hissed into her ear, “I know they’ll come after us.”

‘They’ turned out to be Fred and Freddi. The ceremony was over and everybody milled around, talked and took photos. They had gone to the bleachers where she said she would be. As soon as the two of them saw Andrew, they ran up.

But Andrew disappeared in time mist.

Freddi called for the others, who came as soon as they heard her terrified shouting. Fred had stood by where Faith had vanished, thinking intensely.

“We should have let her sit with us,” Fred grabbed his curls in his hands, almost tearing his hair out with anger, “I should never have let her go off alone.”

“But she’s alive? Right?” Joshua asked, concerned for his sister.

Jodie was about to point out that Freddi was still here, but Samantha elbowed her before she had a chance to speak.

“Why not us?” Gary asked, crouching down to look at the ground, rubbing dirt in his fingers to try and see if anything could be salvaged.

“Because you’re huge,” Sam pointed out, “You’re at least six feet. You can fit your whole wrist around my arm.”

“That’s because you’re as thin as a straw.” Joe murmured, but Fred turned around and glared.

“Well, how do we get her back? Any ideas?” he snapped. It was rather scary to see this.

Joe and Sam glanced at each other. The girls looked at Fred with sympathy and anxiety. Joshua frowned, trying to think of any spells that could work. Gary was still examining dirt.

Then Freddi gave a groan. “Of course!” she exclaimed, pulling Samantha’s pocket watch out from the girl’s backpack. “We could use this and any tracing spell the guys have.”

Joshua stood up straight, his head inches from the seats. “I guess if you place your device on the ground, if you permit me, I will carry out a spell. It may take a while, though.”

Fifteen minutes later, Fred was sitting nervously on the grass, wringing his hat in his hands. Freddi sat beside him, using one arm to pull him close. The others were now outside the bleachers, except for Joshua, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground where Faith and Andrew had stood. Joe said he was going to see if he could contact Uncle Joe. Jodie was keeping an eye on Anna and Joanne.

Fred looked out of the corner of his eye to see Joshua’s shirt and hair flapping about. He heard several words being muttered under the boy’s breath and saw a small green circle underneath him, turning in many different directions.

“We’ll get her back,” Freddi whispered, “Don’t worry.”

But Fred did worry; that was the problem.

As Joshua shouted out some final words, he stood up and backed away from a shimmering green orb.

“Quick! Place it there!” he called out. As Fred did so, Joshua was about to give the next instruction, Fred and Freddi were suddenly warped away.

 

Erik turned over in his sleep as the door slowly opened into his bedroom.

Sitting up slowly, he rubbed his eyes and was about to turn the bedside light on when he could suddenly see a woman glowing bright pink.

He was about to shout for help, remembering the disaster with Mad Jack. But the woman only placed her hand on Erik’s cheek. It felt warm and comforting and Erik wanted to fall asleep again.

He could hear the woman’s voice in his head.

She was his grandmother. And he had to save his parents.


	12. Chapter 12

Fred and Freddi looked around as they arrived somewhere.

It was a wide, barren place made of rock, with just the night sky tinkling above. Despite this, they could somehow still see about them in light reminiscent of sundown. A few boulders were scattered around, near some rock formations that Fred remembered were called needles.

Then they realised they must be outside of time.

Fred noticed Faith immediately. “Look!” he pointed, frantic.

Faith was on her knees, her hands tied behind her and a gag in her mouth. She had a black eye and her arms had bruises. Her eyes widened as soon as she saw the two of them and tried to shout something.

“Where’s Andrew?” Freddi tried not to sound afraid, but she definitely was.

A cold, cruel laugh sounded from behind some boulders. Andrew slowly stepped out from behind it, his hands glowing green.

“Too late, children,” he sneered, “I said I would win. And so I will.”

“You’re never going to have the riches,” Fred’s hands clenched into fists by his sides as he eyed this cruel man, “Give Faith back!”

Andrew snorted, grabbing Faith’s hair and holding it in his hand. She winced.

“I might not have the money,” he gave a low, nasty laugh, “But I can still kill your sweetie!”

“She’s your daughter!” Freddi spat, disgusted. She didn’t think Andrew could sink any lower, but that was apparently possible. “How can you do that to her?”

Andrew replied, matter-of-factly, “I never wanted children anyway. Screaming and whining and irritating little beasts. No, I only care for myself. It’s how you survive.”

Fred didn’t have to look at Faith to know this was making her cry.

Andrew snapped his fingers. The glow faded, but the ground beneath Fred and Freddi crumbled. They looked down for a split second, wondering if they should run, before long vines climbed out from the crack and wound themselves around their chests, lifting them off the ground.

Their arms pinned to their sides, the two of them struggled. Fred wondered why they often ended up in this situation. He could remember being tied up or chained up thirteen times in four years of time travelling. Well, probably twelve times. Did it count when they pretended to be Ching Shih’s hostages?

Freddi tried to relax, even though her mind was whirring like a jet plane. If she stayed calm, maybe she would be able to slip away. Kicking out at thin air to maintain balance, her ankle hit against something cold inside her boot.

Suddenly remembering she had placed Isaac’s knife in a compartment underneath her sole, she tried to kick her leg back so it would be close enough to her hand to grab.

The thorny vines twisted tighter around the two, as Faith’s eyes widened and she tried to get herself free. She couldn’t let anyone else she loved suffer. If Andrew…if Andrew killed her, he might go after her brothers. She didn’t want to think about the idea of the man she had called her father killing her, but she had to face facts. He would. He would as revenge for not being able to get the riches he had dreamed of.

Fred shouted at Andrew, knowing this would be useless but did so anyway, “You filthy animal! She’s spent her whole life looking up to you! You – you ruined them! Joshua started copying you and isolated himself, Faith was so lonely that it’s no wonder she wanted to be with me and Gary – well, I don’t know what’s happening with Gary, but he’s practically a pushover!”

“Why should I care?” Andrew had folded his arms, raising an eyebrow.

“Because you can’t care.” Fred scowled and narrowed his eyes at the man. Neither of them noticed Freddi had pulled the knife out from the compartment and was sawing away at the thick vines.

“Very well,” Andrew smirked, “I was right. I didn’t lie to Joseph; I do only care for myself. If I can’t have the locations of my riches, then I’ll just take what’s important to you, boy.”

To Fred’s surprise, he could see a small figure standing behind Andrew. A small figure in pajamas and curly blonde hair. For a moment, Fred thought he was staring at himself. Then he realised that this was someone else. A faint pink orb shone behind the child. Even though he couldn’t see them, Fred knew this was Isabel.

The little boy turned his head to look at Faith next to him, then back at Andrew.

The boy kicked out at Andrew’s ankles, sending the man flying backwards, but just before Andrew reached the stone below, Faith swung her leg out and he then fell over the edge.

Freddi had now cut herself free, before she skidded to the edge. Andrew had fallen down into the darkness below, into dancing green mist that swirled all around. As his screams faded, Freddi moved back and looked at the boy, before she started untying Faith.

“Granddad?” Freddi squeaked, staring down at the nine-year-old.

Erik blinked a few times before he pointed at Freddi. “You’re Freddi, aren’t you?” he asked, “Dad has your picture by his bed.”

“Hello?” Fred called out, trying his best to struggle away without thorns tearing him. Freddi ran back to him as Erik pulled at Faith’s bonds.

As soon as both lovers were free, they headed to each other. “I’m so sorry,” Faith burst, hugging his waist as his arms flew up, “I shouldn’t have walked off –“

“Faith, it’s fine.” Fred gave a chuckle, despite the situation. As the boy came up, Fred started to feel awkward.

Faith turned to look at the boy, before kneeling down. “What’s your name, kid?” she asked.

“Erik Fitzroy,” he replied, “and you’re my dad, Fred.” Before Fred could say that this was oddly enough not as uncomfortable as going to 2105 for the first time was, Erik pointed at Faith. “And you’re my mom, Faith.”

“My – son?” Faith gulped. This was too much for her. She had trouble comprehending that she was free of Andrew and now her kid was in front of her.

“I should have said,” Freddi giggled, getting Samantha’s pocket watch out, “but Faith –“

“Does that mean you’re my great-granddaughter?” Faith twisted around and looked at the girl with wide eyes.

Freddi nodded.

Faith’s face broke into a smile. “I knew you looked familiar! After I cut my hair, I saw that you looked just like me, but I never guessed – oh, Fred! Isn’t this wonderful?”

She hugged him again, burying her face into his chest. “I should get my wedding planned! I should start to look for wedding dresses!”

“Calm down, it’s not for a couple of years yet.” Freddi tried to say, but all Fred could do was blush the same red as Vicky’s custard. He couldn’t believe that this was happening. He wondered whether this place was weirder, or the realization that Faith was Freddi’s great-grandmother.

“Oh boy,” Fred murmured, as Freddi started to use the pocket watch. 

The orb then encompassed Erik in a faint pink light before he vanished, waving goodbye to his child family members.

As Freddi used the pocket watch, the orb returned, disappearing with them.

 

Back under the bleachers, Joe, Jodie, Sam, Samantha, Joshua and Gary stood there, watching the space where Fred and Freddi had been. When they appeared again, Faith let go of Fred and ran to her brothers.

“Gary! Joshua!” she shrieked, as she embraced them, “Wonderful news! Fred and I are getting married!”

Before Joe or Sam could ask their friend what was happening and what exactly Faith meant, they saw he was staring down at the grass below.

“Fred?” Sam asked, reaching out and holding his shoulder.

But Fred only walked forward, slowly, up to Faith. She stopped laughing and turned around.

“Fred? What’s wrong?” she asked, worried, “Your eyes are green.”

Before anyone could do anything, Fred reached forward and took her hand in both of his.

“ _Faith, honey,_ ” he told her in a soft voice, “ _don’t bite your nails._ ”

That wasn’t his voice.

Joe and Sam anxiously looked at one another. The girls seemed ready to wrestle Fred as soon as they could. Joshua held his palms a few inches apart, about to cast a spell. Gary took the knife from inside his jacket.

Faith’s body tingled, trying to figure out which position to take, but then Fred spoke again.

“ _It’s me, darling. It’s Mommy._ ”

“Mom?” Faith’s voice caught in her throat.

Faith squinted as she saw two very, very faint pink wings behind his body. They were huge and feathery and maybe it was just her, but Fred’s body was lifted about three inches from the ground.

“ _I’ve waited so long, Faith,_ ” he – she? – beamed at Faith, “ _but wherever you were, I watched over you._ ”

“You must have been so scared,” Faith finally managed to say, “when Dad – damn, sorry, Andrew –“

“ _It was, Faith darling,_ ” Isabel made Fred’s finger wipe a tear from her girl’s cheek, “ _and I wanted so much for you. I didn’t want you to have to be with him.” Then she frowned. “Take my body home. It’s under the pit. And your dad – your real dad – wants to see you. He’s lonely, Faith. Travel to 1995, see him, darling. Help him move on._ ”

“And what about them?” Faith glanced at Joshua and Gary.

Two more figures began to appear beside the two young men. One was a woman with long red hair flowing about, the woman Sam had seen. The other was a thin Chinese woman wearing a green-and-red blouse, green skirt and green-and-red boots.

Joshua asked, letting his voice crack, “Mom? Is that – are you my mom?” The angel nodded, her purple wings outstretched and holding him close as he screwed his eyes up. He wouldn’t cry, but he felt as if he was going to.

Gary leant his head into the woman’s chest, although how exactly nobody knew. The woman held her arm around his back and softly on the back of Gary’s head. He let his arm flop to his side and nearly dropped his knife.

Jodie was crying silently. Samantha and Freddi were holding hands. Joe, while feeling a little awkward at seeing someone take over Fred, had a lump in his throat. Sam just wondered how exactly this was happening. Of course, they had seen things on their travels, even spoken to ghosts before. But angels were another kettle of fish.

_Be a good boy, Joshua,_ Ruth said without her lips moving.

_Go and look for your family, Gary,_ his mother also said without her lips moving, _They’ve made me proud._

“ _Don’t let Andrew discourage you from being scared,_ ” Isabel reassured her daughter, “ _He spent your whole lives making you things you’re not. It’s time to put your previous lives behind you and be yourself._ ”

“Mom –“ Faith sniffed, pulling back, “I love you. And I – miss you.”

Isabel held her girl’s hands in Fred’s. “ _I understand, sweetheart. I truly do. But do it for me, all right? Make your mommy proud._ ”

“Okay.” Faith sniffed as she drew away.

Isabel then said something that Andrew had never really meant. “ _I love you, Faith._ ”

“I love you too, Mom.” Faith’s eyes glistened with tears as she watched Fred’s eyes close and his body was lowered to the ground, the wings dispersing. At the same time, the angels holding Joshua and Gary whispered their goodbyes to their boys, before three orbs left with green mist.

When Fred opened his eyes, he looked between Faith and his friends. “Err, guys, did that happen?” he asked, blushing.

“It’s all right,” Freddi said, taking his hand and leading him back to the seats, the girls following.

As they walked out, Sam crossed his arms and frowned at Joe. “How come when you’re possessed, it’s by a gentle soul, but when _I’m_ possessed, it’s by a maniac?”

Going outside, his eyes widened when he saw Vanessa standing there, clearly petrified.

“Vanessa –“ Sam started, but she started to back away.

“Sam? What was that?” she squeaked. He took her hands in his and looked into her eyes.

“Vanessa, let me start on Joe’s tenth birthday…”

Meanwhile, Fred and Faith had walked over to the crowd again. They were holding hands, Faith perhaps a little tight, and she looked overjoyed. Fred felt so as well, but he kept this inside.

“So,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “I guess we should – if you want to, that is –“

“Of course,” she held her arms around his neck, nestling into his chest, “You chose when and where. I think we need to know each other a little bit before we do anything stupid.”

“The real you.” Fred allowed himself to hug her back.

 

The Time Agency were delighted to learn that Andrew had been stopped. As soon as Daisy had told the men who had been meditating, they then started floating again, sitting cross-legged and hovering around. To be honest, the six time-travelers wondered if these guys did anything else.

“The rooms are just being set up,” Uncle Joe told his nephew and his friends, “The three can decorate them how they want.”

“But shouldn’t they come and be with us? They need to get used to the twenty-first century.” Sam asked.

Uncle Joe thought, hand on his chin. “I would say so. But we have to think of something.”

“The angel –“ Fred swallowed, “Isabel said that her body is underneath Andrew’s swimming pool and she needs to go back to 1995.”

“Well, I’ll see if she needs to go back to 1995 or 2013,” Uncle Joe replied, “It depends on paradoxes. And we need to see when the boys can say hello to their families.”

“Don’t worry,” Jodie held his arm, leaning close, “It’ll be OK.”

“Jodie, what’s gotten into you?” Samantha teased.

“Oh, the sound of a wedding always gets me happy,” Jodie squealed, “and I can’t wait!”

“It’s not yet,” Fred blushed, “It’s going to be when I’ve left college. I decided.”

“Well, if you can speed through college in two years –“ Freddi started, but then stopped abruptly as everyone scowled at her. Then Fred sighed again, slapping a hand over his face in embarrassment.

“Sorry.” Freddi mumbled, chewing her nail.

Downstairs, the three green-eyed children had found the dungeons. They were just simply looking through when Gary had pointed it out. Daisy had been hesitant, but took them inside anyway.

When looking at Mad Jack’s cell, where he had set up another game of solitaire, Joshua squinted as he took a closer look. “Mr Jack?” he asked, bewildered.

Mad Jack looked up from his game and chuckled. “You kids got big.”

“Mr Jack?” Gary asked. “You got so old!”

“Thanks.” Mad Jack sarcastically muttered. “I guess you’re on to the next part of your life,” he sighed as he crossed his arms, “The mysteries of history stay a mystery forever and I get to stay in here and watch Faith and Fred exchange bacteria. Woop-de-do.”

Faith looked away, pulling hair behind her ear. Joshua protectively stood in front of her, but Mad Jack didn’t react.

“You know, I knew you were going to end up offing Andrew,” he stood up and walked to the glass, “I didn’t say that because – if you want to be honest, he was being a grumpy git and I like having all the aces up my sleeve.”

“You’re just like him,” Gary told the older man, “You only care for yourself.”

Mad Jack rolled his eyes. “At least I admit it.”

 

**Three Months Later…  
1996**

“Go on,” Anna coaxed Gary, who was standing outside his mother’s house, “I’ll be here.”

“Thanks Anna,” he smiled back at her, “But I don’t know if I can just go in and –“

“We have the Book,” Anna reassured him, nodding down to where it was under her t-shirt, “in case something goes wrong. And they’ll want to see you again. Trust me.”

Gary tensed and rang the doorbell.

 

Meanwhile, across the country but at the same time, Freddi stood with her great-great-adopted uncle at the house in Utah where his mother had been taken.

Looking out at the garden beyond the wooden fence, Joshua saw a young man very much like him, with the very same shock of red hair, coming up.

“I’m scared,” he whispered to Freddi, “Please don’t tell anyone I said that.”

Freddi patted him on the back. “You’ll be fine.”

The young man came up to the fence. “Yeah?” he asked.

Joshua fiddled with his fingers. “Err, are you Zachariah James White?”

“Yeah,” the boy answered, “Do you want my dad?”

“Yes,” Joshua breathed, his heart in his mouth, “I – I’m Joshua. I’m Ruth’s son.”

 

Fred and Faith had already brought Isabel’s body to the morgue in Boston. They had called up Mr Wilson and now Faith was nervously biting her nails in the funeral home. This was going to be much harder than either of the other two.

“What should I do?” Faith squealed in worry. Fred was tired of nearly ten minutes of this, but still managed to keep his cool.

“Be like me,” Fred teased, “Blurt it like. Like pulling off a band-aid.”

“What’s a band-aid?”

“Never mind. Look, he’s here now.” Fred pointed.

They stood up as a balding man with small glasses came in. “Are you the two who called about my Isabel?” he didn’t sound too keen. He must have had nearly nineteen years of dead ends.

Fred and Faith looked at each other before Faith slowly walked forward. “Mr Wilson?” her voice squeaked.

“Yes?” he asked, a little annoyed, “What’s this about?”

“I’m your daughter, Mr Wilson. I’m Faith.”

The man’s eyes grew wide. Skeptically, he took Faith’s hand and slowly lifted it, looking into her eyes. She pulled some hair behind her ear anxiously, terrified that he would shout or deny it or walk out. Then he murmured, “Isabel only told me the baby’s name.”

Faith gave a chuckle. “If this makes you feel any better, I can’t exactly believe this either.” Then she looked at Fred. “This is my fiancée. Fred, honey, show him the Book.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t call me that.” Fred grumbled under his breath, but opened the Book anyway.

 

**6th August 2013  
Brooklyn**

All three parties landed back in Joe’s bedroom, where he was trying to levitate a pack of cards. Joshua smirked at him.

“I see you’re improving on that,” he sat down in front of him, “I’ll show you how to make them line up on a piece of string.”

“Did they agree not to tell?” Joe asked.

Anna, Faith and Freddi all nodded.

“They were a little harsh at first,” Anna shrugged, “but Gary showed them Jodie’s Book. Then they didn’t say a word. Gary’s family is huge, Joe. There’s relatives here and back in China. Gary’s name is slightly wrong; Wei wanted to spell it with two ‘r’s instead of one ‘r’. But they said they’ll stay quiet about everything.”

“Joshua’s dad saw me use the pocket watch,” Freddi explained, “And his big brother’s fascinated. He’s a real science geek. Trust me, he’s going to love us.”

“And what about you?” Joe asked Faith.

Faith squeezed Fred’s hand and blushed. “He believed us. The problem with Mom –“ her voice faltered, “She’s missing as no longer missing. We spun something about a unidentified Jane Doe. But people will be asking questions forever. It’s a small price to pay.”

“I know,” Fred told her, “Now, what were you saying about the wedding? Only so I can get it out of the way before I puke?”

Faith punched him playfully.

 

Erik opened his eyes in his bed. Seth was sleeping on the other bed, cuddling his toys close to him. Erik slightly thanked his grandmother as he sat up straight and opened his drawer to try and get a toffee.

“Hey!” he heard a teasing remark from his door. Fred had come in and was sitting on the end of the bed.

Erik asked, “Dad? Was that how you found out you were going to marry Mom?”

Fred rubbed the back of his neck, smiling. “Yeah.”

“And how Aunt Vanessa found out about us?”

“Got it in one.”

Then Erik shuffled under the blanket. “Could I ask a question?” Fred nodded. “What’s my kid called?”

Fred frowned for a second, before he breathed out. “All I will say is that he’s called Frederick.”

Erik muttered under his breath.

“James, Sadie and Frederick. I like those names.” Then he asked, “Are we going to the Time Agency today? You said we would.”

“Of course, Erik,” Fred held his arms around his boy, “Aunt Anna and Uncle Gary are having their anniversary there.”

Anna and Gary had married on the 2019 summer solstice in Brooklyn. Anna also called herself a soldier’s wife and that certainly was true.

Historical artifacts were always a big part of the group’s livelihood. If the secrets and objects were not handed to the Time Agency or slowly steered towards where and when they were to be found, they were kept aside for a rainy day.

Joshua and Gary had spent five years before Gary’s wedding in the Middle East, doing what they did best; saving artifacts. After learning how to turn invisible, they had gone to Iraq and brought back numerous historical secrets. Invisibility and flight were perfect together and they had been on many successful missions.

Faith and Fred’s wedding had been in New Zealand, at the point where the Maori village had been. Vanessa and Sam married three years later, after Vanessa had undergone surgery to remove most of her moles.

Erik asked Fred, “Dad, do you ever think I could know the historical knowledge?”

“Well, your mother already does,” Fred answered, “Maybe.”

Erik laughed and hugged his dad tightly. Fred rested his hand on Erik’s back and held him close.

He wouldn’t change this for anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isabel possessing Fred was meant to be an homage to _Ant-Man and the Wasp_. And I somehow made it a hundred times creepier.
> 
> I hoped you enjoyed this story and feel free to see my pictures on DeviantArt. The link will be on my main page.


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